335. All discourse is made up of sentences: consequently the sentence is the unit with which we must begin. And in order to get a clear and practical idea of the structure of sentences, it is necessary to become expert in analysis; that is, in separating them into their component parts.
A general idea of analysis was needed in our study of the parts of speech,—in determining case, subject and predicate, clauses introduced by conjunctions, etc.
Value of analysis.
A more thorough and accurate acquaintance with the subject is necessary for two reasons,—not only for a correct understanding of the principles of syntax, but for the study of punctuation and other topics treated in rhetoric.
336. A sentence is the expression of a thought in words.
Kinds of sentences as to form.
337. According to the way in which a thought is put before a listener or reader, sentences may be of three kinds:—
(1) Declarative, which puts the thought in the form of a declaration or assertion. This is the most common one.
(2) Interrogative, which puts the thought in a question.
(3) Imperative, which expresses command, entreaty, or request.
Any one of these may be put in the form of an exclamation, but the sentence would still be declarative, interrogative, or imperative; hence, according to form, there are only the three kinds of sentences already named.
Examples of these three kinds are, declarative, "Old year, you must not die!" interrogative, "Hath he not always treasures, always friends?" imperative, "Come to the bridal chamber, Death!"
CLASSIFICATION ACCORDING TO NUMBER OF STATEMENTS.
SIMPLE SENTENCES.
Division according to number of statements.
338. But the division of sentences most necessary to analysis is the division, not according to the form in which a thought is put, but according to how many statements there are.
The one we shall consider first is the simple sentence.
Definition.
339. A simple sentence is one which contains a single statement, question, or command: for example, "The quality of mercy is not strained;" "What wouldst thou do, old man?" "Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar."
340. Every sentence must contain two parts,—a subject and a predicate.
Definition: Predicate.
The predicate of a sentence is a verb or verb phrase which says something about the subject.
In order to get a correct definition of the subject, let us examine two specimen sentences:—
1. But now all is to be changed.
2. A rare old plant is the ivy green.
In the first sentence we find the subject by placing the word what before the predicate,—What is to be changed? Answer, all. Consequently, we say all is the subject of the sentence.
But if we try this with the second sentence, we have some trouble,—What is the ivy green? Answer, a rare old plant. But we cannot help seeing that an assertion is made, not of a rare old plant, but about the ivy green; and the real subject is the latter. Sentences are frequently in this inverted order, especially in poetry; and our definition must be the following, to suit all cases:—
Subject.
The subject is that which answers the question who or what placed before the predicate, and which at the same time names that of which the predicate says something.
The subject in interrogative and imperative simple sentences.
341. In the interrogative sentence, the subject is frequently after the verb. Either the verb is the first word of the sentence, or an interrogative pronoun, adjective, or adverb that asks about the subject. In analyzing such sentences, always reduce them to the order of a statement. Thus,—
(1) "When should this scientific education be commenced?"
(2) "This scientific education should be commenced when?"
(3) "What wouldst thou have a good great man obtain?"
(4) "Thou wouldst have a good great man obtain what?"
In the imperative sentence, the subject (you, thou, or ye) is in most cases omitted, and is to be supplied; as, "[You] behold her single in the field."
Exercise.
Name the subject and the predicate in each of the following sentences:—
1.
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves.
2. Hence originated their contempt for terrestrial distinctions.
3. Nowhere else on the Mount of Olives is there a view like this.
4. In the sands of Africa and Arabia the camel is a sacred and precious gift.
5. The last of all the Bards was he.
6. Slavery they can have anywhere.
7. Listen, on the other hand, to an ignorant man.
8. What must have been the emotions of the Spaniards!
9. Such was not the effect produced on the sanguine spirit of the general.
10. What a contrast did these children of southern Europe present to the Anglo-Saxon races!
ELEMENTS OF THE SIMPLE SENTENCE.
342. All the elements of the simple sentence are as follows:—
(1) The subject.
(2) The predicate.
(3) The object.
(4) The complements.
(5) Modifiers.
(6) Independent elements.
The subject and predicate have been discussed.
343. The object may be of two kinds:—
Definitions. Direct Object.
(1) The DIRECT OBJECT is that word or expression which answers the question who or what placed after the verb; or the direct object names that toward which the action of the predicate is directed.
It must be remembered that any verbal may have an object; but for the present we speak of the object of the verb, and by object we mean the direct object.
Indirect object.
(2) The INDIRECT OBJECT is a noun or its equivalent used as the modifier of a verb or verbal to name the person or thing for whose benefit an action is performed.
Examples of direct and indirect objects are, direct, "She seldom saw her course at a glance;" indirect, "I give thee this to wear at the collar."
Complement:
344. A complement is a word added to a verb of incomplete predication to complete its meaning.
Notice that a verb of incomplete predication may be of two kinds,—transitive and intransitive.
Of a transitive verb.
The transitive verb often requires, in addition to the object, a word to define fully the action that is exerted upon the object; for example, "Ye call me chief." Here the verb call has an object me (if we leave out chief), and means summoned; but chief belongs to the verb, and me here is not the object simply of call, but of call chief, just as if to say, "Ye honor me." This word completing a transitive verb is sometimes called a factitive object, or second object, but it is a true complement.
The fact that this is a complement can be more clearly seen when the verb is in the passive. See sentence 19, in exercise following Sec. 364.
Complement of an intransitive verb.
An intransitive verb, especially the forms of be, seem, appear, taste, feel, become, etc., must often have a word to complete the meaning: as, for instance, "Brow and head were round, and of massive weight;" "The good man, he was now getting old, above sixty;" "Nothing could be more copious than his talk;" "But in general he seemed deficient in laughter."
All these complete intransitive verbs. The following are examples of complements of transitive verbs: "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick;" "He was termed Thomas, or, more familiarly, Thom of the Gills;" "A plentiful fortune is reckoned necessary, in the popular judgment, to the completion of this man of the world."
345. The modifiers and independent elements will be discussed in detail in Secs. 351, 352, 355.
Phrases.
346. A phrase is a group of words, not containing a verb, but used as a single modifier.
As to form, phrases are of three kinds:—
Three kinds.
(1) PREPOSITIONAL, introduced by a preposition: for example, "Such a convulsion is the struggle of gradual suffocation, as in drowning; and, in the original Opium Confessions, I mentioned a case of that nature."
(2) PARTICIPIAL, consisting of a participle and the words dependent on it. The following are examples: "Then retreating into the warm house, and barring the door, she sat down to undress the two youngest children."
(3) INFINITIVE, consisting of an infinitive and the words dependent upon it; as in the sentence, "She left her home forever in order to present herself at the Dauphin's court."
Things used as Subject.
347. The subject of a simple sentence may be—
(1) Noun: "There seems to be no interval between greatness and meanness." Also an expression used as a noun; as, "A cheery, 'Ay, ay, sir!' rang out in response."
(2) Pronoun: "We are fortified by every heroic anecdote."
(3) Infinitive phrase: "To enumerate and analyze these relations is to teach the science of method."
(4) Gerund: "There will be sleeping enough in the grave;" "What signifies wishing and hoping for better things?"
(5) Adjective used as noun: "The good are befriended even by weakness and defect;" "The dead are there."
(6) Adverb: "Then is the moment for the humming bird to secure the insects."
348. The subject is often found after the verb—
(1) By simple inversion: as, "Therein has been, and ever will be, my deficiency,—the talent of starting the game;" "Never, from their lips, was heard one syllable to justify," etc.
(2) In interrogative sentences, for which see Sec. 341.
(3) After "it introductory:" "It ought not to need to print in a reading room a caution not to read aloud."
In this sentence, it stands in the position of a grammatical subject; but the real or logical subject is to print, etc. It merely serves to throw the subject after a verb.
Disguised infinitive subject.
There is one kind of expression that is really an infinitive, though disguised as a prepositional phrase: "It is hard for honest men to separate their country from their party, or their religion from their sect."
The for did not belong there originally, but obscures the real subject,—the infinitive phrase. Compare Chaucer: "No wonder is a lewed man to ruste" (No wonder [it] is [for] a common man to rust).
(4) After "there introductory," which has the same office as it in reversing the order (see Sec. 292): "There was a description of the destructive operations of time;" "There are asking eyes, asserting eyes, prowling eyes."
Things used as Direct Object.
349. The words used as direct object are mainly the same as those used for subject, but they will be given in detail here, for the sake of presenting examples:—
(1) Noun: "Each man has his own vocation." Also expressions used as nouns: for example, "'By God, and by Saint George!' said the King."
(2) Pronoun: "Memory greets them with the ghost of a smile."
(3) Infinitive: "We like to see everything do its office."
(4) Gerund: "She heard that sobbing of litanies, or the thundering of organs."
(5) Adjective used as a noun: "For seventy leagues through the mighty cathedral, I saw the quick and the dead."
Things used as Complement.
Complement: Of an intransitive verb.
350. As complement of an intransitive verb,—
(1) Noun: "She had been an ardent patriot."
(2) Pronoun: "Who is she in bloody coronation robes from Rheims?" "This is she, the shepherd girl."
(3) Adjective: "Innocence is ever simple and credulous."
(4) Infinitive: "To enumerate and analyze these relations is to teach the science of method."
(5) Gerund: "Life is a pitching of this penny,—heads or tails;" "Serving others is serving us."
(6) A prepositional phrase: "His frame is on a larger scale;" "The marks were of a kind not to be mistaken."
It will be noticed that all these complements have a double office,—completing the predicate, and explaining or modifying the subject.
Of a transitive verb.
As complement of a transitive verb,—
(1) Noun: "I will not call you cowards."
(2) Adjective: "Manners make beauty superfluous and ugly;" "Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and malleable in the fiery furnace of domestic tribulation." In this last sentence, the object is made the subject by being passive, and the words italicized are still complements. Like all the complements in this list, they are adjuncts of the object, and, at the same time, complements of the predicate.
(3) Infinitive, or infinitive phrase: "That cry which made me look a thousand ways;" "I hear the echoes throng."
(4) Participle, or participial phrase: "I can imagine him pushing firmly on, trusting the hearts of his countrymen."
(5) Prepositional phrase: "My antagonist would render my poniard and my speed of no use to me."
Modifiers.
I. Modifiers of Subject, Object, or Complement.
351. Since the subject and object are either nouns or some equivalent of a noun, the words modifying them must be adjectives or some equivalent of an adjective; and whenever the complement is a noun, or the equivalent of the noun, it is modified by the same words and word groups that modify the subject and the object.
These modifiers are as follows:—
(1) A possessive: "My memory assures me of this;" "She asked her father's permission."
(2) A word in apposition: "Theodore Wieland, the prisoner at the bar, was now called upon for his defense;" "Him, this young idolater, I have seasoned for thee."
(3) An adjective: "Great geniuses have the shortest biographies;" "Her father was a prince in Lebanon,—proud, unforgiving, austere."
(4) Prepositional phrase: "Are the opinions of a man on right and wrong on fate and causation, at the mercy of a broken sleep or an indigestion?" "The poet needs a ground in popular tradition to work on."
(5) Infinitive phrase: "The way to know him is to compare him, not with nature, but with other men;" "She has a new and unattempted problem to solve;" "The simplest utterances are worthiest to be written."
(6) Participial phrase: "Another reading, given at the request of a Dutch lady, was the scene from King John;" "This was the hour already appointed for the baptism of the new Christian daughter."
Exercise.—In each sentence in Sec. 351, tell whether the subject, object, or complement is modified.
II. Modifiers of the Predicate.
352. Since the predicate is always a verb, the word modifying it must be an adverb or its equivalent:—
(1) Adverb: "Slowly and sadly we laid him down."
(2) Prepositional phrase: "The little carriage is creeping on at one mile an hour;" "In the twinkling of an eye, our horses had carried us to the termination of the umbrageous isle."
In such a sentence as, "He died like a God," the word group like a God is often taken as a phrase; but it is really a contracted clause, the verb being omitted.
Tells how.
(3) Participial phrase: "She comes down from heaven to his help, interpreting for him the most difficult truths, and leading him from star to star."
(4) Infinitive phrase: "No imprudent, no sociable angel, ever dropped an early syllable to answer his longing."
(For participial and infinitive phrases, see further Secs. 357-363.)
(5) Indirect object: "I gave every man a trumpet;" "Give them not only noble teachings, but noble teachers."
These are equivalent to the phrases to every man and to them, and modify the predicate in the same way.
Retained with passive; or
When the verb is changed from active to passive, the indirect object is retained, as in these sentences: "It is left you to find out the reason why;" "All such knowledge should be given her."
subject of passive verb and direct object retained.
Or sometimes the indirect object of the active voice becomes the subject of the passive, and the direct object is retained: for example, "She is to be taught to extend the limits of her sympathy;" "I was shown an immense sarcophagus."
(6) Adverbial objective. These answer the question when, or how long, how far, etc., and are consequently equivalent to adverbs in modifying a predicate: "We were now running thirteen miles an hour;" "One way lies hope;" "Four hours before midnight we approached a mighty minster."
Exercises.
(a) Pick out subject, predicate, and (direct) object:—
1. This, and other measures of precaution, I took.
2. The pursuing the inquiry under the light of an end or final cause, gives wonderful animation, a sort of personality to the whole writing.
3. Why does the horizon hold me fast, with my joy and grief, in this center?
4. His books have no melody, no emotion, no humor, no relief to the dead prosaic level.
5. On the voyage to Egypt, he liked, after dinner, to fix on three or four persons to support a proposition, and as many to oppose it.
6. Fashion does not often caress the great, but the children of the great.
7. No rent roll can dignify skulking and dissimulation.
8. They do not wish to be lovely, but to be loved.
(b) Pick out the subject, predicate, and complement:
*
1. Evil, according to old philosophers, is good in the making.
*
2. But anger drives a man to say anything.
*
3. The teachings of the High Spirit are abstemious, and, in regard to particulars, negative.
*
4. Spanish diet and youth leave the digestion undisordered and the slumbers light.
*
5. Yet they made themselves sycophantic servants of the King of Spain.
*
6. A merciless oppressor hast thou been.
*
7. To the men of this world, to the animal strength and spirits, the man of ideas appears out of his reason.
*
8. I felt myself, for the first time, burthened with the anxieties of a man, and a member of the world.
(c) Pick out the direct and the indirect object in each:—
*
1. Not the less I owe thee justice.
*
2. Unhorse me, then, this imperial rider.
*
3. She told the first lieutenant part of the truth.
*
4. I promised her protection against all ghosts.
*
5. I gave him an address to my friend, the attorney.
*
6. Paint me, then, a room seventeen feet by twelve.
(d) Pick out the words and phrases in apposition:—
*
1. To suffer and to do, that was thy portion in life.
*
2. A river formed the boundary,—the river Meuse.
*
3. In one feature, Lamb resembles Sir Walter Scott; viz., in the dramatic character of his mind and taste.
*
4. This view was luminously expounded by Archbishop Whately, the present Archbishop of Dublin.
*
5. Yes, at length the warrior lady, the blooming cornet, this nun so martial, this dragoon so lovely, must visit again the home of her childhood.
(e) Pick out the modifiers of the predicate:—
*
1. It moves from one flower to another like a gleam of light, upwards, downwards, to the right and to the left.
*
2.
*
And hark! like the roar of the billows on the shore,
The cry of battle rises along their changing line.
*
3. Their intention was to have a gay, happy dinner, after their long confinement to a ship, at the chief hotel.
*
4. That night, in little peaceful Easedale, six children sat by a peat fire, expecting the return of their parents.
Compound Subject, Compound Predicate, etc.
Not compound sentences.
353. Frequently in a simple sentence the writer uses two or more predicates to the same subject, two or more subjects of the same predicate, several modifiers, complements, etc.; but it is to be noticed that, in all such sentences as we quote below, the writers of them purposely combined them in single statements, and they are not to be expanded into compound sentences. In a compound sentence the object is to make two or more full statements.
Examples of compound subjects are, "By degrees Rip's awe and apprehension subsided;" "The name of the child, the air of the mother, the tone of her voice,—all awakened a train of recollections in his mind."
Sentences with compound predicates are, "The company broke up, and returned to the more important concerns of the election;" "He shook his head, shouldered the rusty firelock, and, with a heart full of trouble and anxiety, turned his steps homeward."
Sentences with compound objects of the same verb are, "He caught his daughter and her child in his arms;" "Voyages and travels I would also have."
And so with complements, modifiers, etc.
Logical Subject and Logical Predicate.
354. The logical subject is the simple or grammatical subject, together with all its modifiers.
The logical predicate is the simple or grammatical predicate (that is, the verb), together with its modifiers, and its object or complement.
Larger view of a sentence.
It is often a help to the student to find the logical subject and predicate first, then the grammatical subject and predicate. For example, in the sentence, "The situation here contemplated exposes a dreadful ulcer, lurking far down in the depths of human nature," the logical subject is the situation here contemplated, and the rest is the logical predicate. Of this, the simple subject is situation; the predicate, exposes; the object, ulcer, etc.
Independent Elements of the Sentence.
355. The following words and expressions are grammatically independent of the rest of the sentence; that is, they are not a necessary part, do not enter into its structure:—
(1) Person or thing addressed: "But you know them, Bishop;" "Ye crags and peaks, I'm with you once again."
(2) Exclamatory expressions: "But the lady—! Oh, heavens! will that spectacle ever depart from my dreams?"
Caution.
The exclamatory expression, however, may be the person or thing addressed, same as (1), above: thus, "Ah, young sir! what are you about?" Or it may be an imperative, forming a sentence: "Oh, hurry, hurry, my brave young man!"
(3) Infinitive phrase thrown in loosely: "To make a long story short, the company broke up;" "Truth to say, he was a conscientious man."
(4) Prepositional phrase not modifying: "Within the railing sat, to the best of my remembrance, six quill-driving gentlemen;" "At all events, the great man of the prophecy had not yet appeared."
(5) Participial phrase: "But, generally speaking, he closed his literary toils at dinner;" "Considering the burnish of her French tastes, her noticing even this is creditable."
(6) Single words: as, "Oh, yes! everybody knew them;" "No, let him perish;" "Well, he somehow lived along;" "Why, grandma, how you're winking!" "Now, this story runs thus."
Another caution.
There are some adverbs, such as perhaps, truly, really, undoubtedly, besides, etc., and some conjunctions, such as however, then, moreover, therefore, nevertheless, etc., that have an office in the sentence, and should not be confused with the words spoken of above. The words well, now, why, and so on, are independent when they merely arrest the attention without being necessary.
PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES.
356. In their use, prepositional phrases may be,
(1) Adjectival, modifying a noun, pronoun, or word used as a noun: for example, "He took the road to King Richard's pavilion;" "I bring reports on that subject from Ascalon."
(2) Adverbial, limiting in the same way an adverb limits: as, "All nature around him slept in calm moonshine or in deep shadow;" "Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife."
(3) Independent, not dependent on any word in the sentence (for examples, see Sec. 355, 4).
PARTICIPLES AND PARTICIPIAL PHRASES.
357. It will be helpful to sum up here the results of our study of participles and participial phrases, and to set down all the uses which are of importance in analysis:—
(1) The adjectival use, already noticed, as follows:—
*
(a) As a complement of a transitive verb, and at the same time a modifier of the object (for an example, see Sec. 350, 4).
*
(b) As a modifier of subject, object, or complement (see Sec. 351, 6).
(2) The adverbial use, modifying the predicate, instances of which were seen in Sec. 352, 3. In these the participial phrases connect closely with the verb, and there is no difficulty in seeing that they modify.
These need close watching.
There are other participial phrases which are used adverbially, but require somewhat closer attention; thus, "The letter of introduction, containing no matters of business, was speedily run through."
In this sentence, the expression containing no matters of business does not describe letter, but it is equivalent to because it contained no matters of business, and hence is adverbial, modifying was speedily run through.
Notice these additional examples:—
Being a great collector of everything relating to Milton [reason, "Because I was," etc.], I had naturally possessed myself of Richardson the painter's thick octavo volumes.
Neither the one nor the other writer was valued by the public, both having [since they had] a long warfare to accomplish of contumely and ridicule.
Wilt thou, therefore, being now wiser [as thou art] in thy thoughts, suffer God to give by seeming to refuse?
(3) Wholly independent in meaning and grammar. See Sec. 355, (5), and these additional examples:—
Assuming the specific heat to be the same as that of water, the entire mass of the sun would cool down to 15,000° Fahrenheit in five thousand years.
This case excepted, the French have the keenest possible sense of everything odious and ludicrous in posing.
INFINITIVES AND INFINITIVE PHRASES.
358. The various uses of the infinitive give considerable trouble, and they will be presented here in full, or as nearly so as the student will require.
I. The verbal use. (1) Completing an incomplete verb, but having no other office than a verbal one.
*
(a) With may (might),can (could),should,would,seem, ought, etc.: "My weekly bill used invariably to be about fifty shillings;" "There, my dear, he should not have known them at all;" "He would instruct her in the white man's religion, and teach her how to be happy and good."
*
(b) With the forms of be, being equivalent to a future with obligation, necessity, etc.: as in the sentences, "Ingenuity and cleverness are to be rewarded by State prizes;" "'The Fair Penitent' was to be acted that evening."
*
(c) With the definite forms of go, equivalent to a future: "I was going to repeat my remonstrances;" "I am not going to dissert on Hood's humor."
(2) Completing an incomplete transitive verb, but also belonging to a subject or an object (see Sec. 344 for explanation of the complements of transitive verbs): "I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher origin for events" (retained with passive); "Do they not cause the heart to beat, and the eyes to fill?"
359. II. The substantive use, already examined; but see the following examples for further illustration:—
(1) As the subject: "To have the wall there, was to have the foe's life at their mercy;" "To teach is to learn."
(2) As the object: "I like to hear them tell their old stories;" "I don't wish to detract from any gentleman's reputation."
(3) As complement: See examples under (1), above.
(4) In apposition, explanatory of a noun preceding: as, "She forwarded to the English leaders a touching invitation to unite with the French;" "He insisted on his right to forget her."
360. III. The adjectival use, modifying a noun that may be a subject, object, complement, etc.: for example, "But there was no time to be lost;" "And now Amyas had time to ask Ayacanora the meaning of this;" "I have such a desire to be well with my public" (see also Sec. 351, 5).
361. IV. The adverbial use, which may be to express—
(1) Purpose: "The governor, Don Guzman, sailed to the eastward only yesterday to look for you;" "Isn't it enough to bring us to death, to please that poor young gentleman's fancy?"
(2) Result: "Don Guzman returns to the river mouth to find the ship a blackened wreck;" "What heart could be so hard as not to take pity on the poor wild thing?"
(3) Reason: "I am quite sorry to part with them;" "Are you mad, to betray yourself by your own cries?" "Marry, hang the idiot, to bring me such stuff!"
(4) Degree: "We have won gold enough to serve us the rest of our lives;" "But the poor lady was too sad to talk except to the boys now and again."
(5) Condition: "You would fancy, to hear McOrator after dinner, the Scotch fighting all the battles;" "To say what good of fashion we can, it rests on reality" (the last is not a simple sentence, but it furnishes a good example of this use of the infinitive).
362. The fact that the infinitives in Sec. 361 are used adverbially, is evident from the meaning of the sentences.
Whether each sentence containing an adverbial infinitive has the meaning of purpose, result, etc., may be found out by turning the infinitive into an equivalent clause, such as those studied under subordinate conjunctions.
To test this, notice the following:—
In (1), to look means that he might look; to please is equivalent to that he may please,—both purpose clauses.
In (2), to find shows the result of the return; not to take pity is equivalent to that it would not take pity.
In (3), to part means because I part, etc.; and to betray and to bring express the reason, equivalent to that you betray, etc.
In (4), to serve and to talk are equivalent to [as much gold] as will serve us; and "too sad to talk" also shows degree.
In (5), to hear means if you should hear, and to say is equivalent to if we say,—both expressing condition.
363. V. The independent use, which is of two kinds,—
(1) Thrown loosely into the sentence; as in Sec. 355, (3).
(2) Exclamatory: "I a philosopher! I advance pretensions;" "'He to die!' resumed the bishop." (See also Sec. 268, 4.)
OUTLINE OF ANALYSIS.
364. In analyzing simple sentences, give—
(1) The predicate. If it is an incomplete verb, give the complement (Secs. 344 and 350) and its modifiers (Sec. 351).
(2) The object of the verb (Sec. 349).
(3) Modifiers of the object (Sec. 351).
(4) Modifiers of the predicate (Sec. 352).
(5) The subject (Sec. 347).
(6) Modifiers of the subject (Sec. 351).
(7) Independent elements (Sec. 355).
This is not the same order that the parts of the sentence usually have; but it is believed that the student will proceed more easily by finding the predicate with its modifiers, object, etc., and then finding the subject by placing the question who or what before it.
Exercise in Analyzing Simple Sentences.
Analyze the following according to the directions given:—
1. Our life is March weather, savage and serene in one hour.
2. I will try to keep the balance true.
3. The questions of Whence? What? and Whither? and the solution of these, must be in a life, not in a book.
4. The ward meetings on election days are not softened by any misgiving of the value of these ballotings.
5. Our English Bible is a wonderful specimen of the strength and music of the English language.
6. Through the years and the centuries, through evil agents, through toys and atoms, a great and beneficent tendency irresistibly streams.
7. To be hurried away by every event, is to have no political system at all.
8. This mysticism the ancients called ecstasy,—a getting-out of their bodies to think.
9. He risked everything, and spared nothing, neither ammunition, nor money, nor troops, nor generals, nor himself.
10. We are always in peril, always in a bad plight, just on the edge of destruction, and only to be saved by invention and courage.
11. His opinion is always original, and to the purpose.
12. To these gifts of nature, Napoleon added the advantage of having been born to a private and humble fortune.
13.
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green and blue and white.
14. We one day descried some shapeless object floating at a distance.
15.
Old Adam, the carrion crow,
The old crow of Cairo;
He sat in the shower, and let it flow
Under his tail and over his crest.
16. It costs no more for a wise soul to convey his quality to other men.
17. It is easy to sugar to be sweet.
18. At times the black volume of clouds overhead seemed rent asunder by flashes of lightning.
19. The whole figure and air, good and amiable otherwise, might be called flabby and irresolute.
20. I have heard Coleridge talk, with eager energy, two stricken hours, and communicate no meaning whatsoever to any individual.
21. The word conscience has become almost confined, in popular use, to the moral sphere.
22. You may ramble a whole day together, and every moment discover something new.
23. She had grown up amidst the liberal culture of Henry's court a bold horsewoman, a good shot, a graceful dancer, a skilled musician, an accomplished scholar.
24. Her aims were simple and obvious,—to preserve her throne, to keep England out of war, to restore civil and religious order.
25.
Fair name might he have handed down,
Effacing many a stain of former crime.
26. Of the same grandeur, in less heroic and poetic form, was the patriotism of Peel in recent history.
27. Oxford, ancient mother! hoary with ancestral honors, time-honored, and, haply, time-shattered power—I owe thee nothing!
28. The villain, I hate him and myself, to be a reproach to such goodness.
29. I dare this, upon my own ground, and in my own garden, to bid you leave the place now and forever.
30. Upon this shore stood, ready to receive her, in front of all this mighty crowd, the prime minister of Spain, the same Condé Olivarez.
31. Great was their surprise to see a young officer in uniform stretched within the bushes upon the ground.
32. She had made a two days' march, baggage far in the rear, and no provisions but wild berries.
33. This amiable relative, an elderly man, had but one foible, or perhaps one virtue, in this world.
34. Now, it would not have been filial or ladylike.
35. Supposing this computation to be correct, it must have been in the latitude of Boston, the present capital of New England.
36. The cry, "A strange vessel close aboard the frigate!" having already flown down the hatches, the ship was in an uproar.
37.
But yield, proud foe, thy fleet
With the crews at England's feet.
38. Few in number, and that number rapidly perishing away through sickness and hardships; surrounded by a howling wilderness and savage tribes; exposed to the rigors of an almost arctic winter,—their minds were filled with doleful forebodings.
39. List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest.
40.
In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas,
Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pré
Lay in the fruitful valley.
41. Must we in all things look for the how, and the why, and the wherefore?
CONTRACTED SENTENCES.
Words left out after than or as.
365. Some sentences look like simple ones in form, but have an essential part omitted that is so readily supplied by the mind as not to need expressing. Such are the following:—
"There is no country more worthy of our study than England [is worthy of our study]."
"The distinctions between them do not seem to be so marked as [they are marked] in the cities."
To show that these words are really omitted, compare with them the two following:—
"The nobility and gentry are more popular among the inferior orders than they are in any other country."
"This is not so universally the case at present as it was formerly."
Sentences with like.
366. As shown in Part I. (Sec. 333). the expressions of manner introduced by like, though often treated as phrases, are really contracted clauses; but, if they were expanded, as would be the connective instead of like; thus,—
"They'll shine o'er her sleep, like [as] a smile from the west [would shine].
From her own loved island of sorrow."
This must, however, be carefully discriminated from cases where like is an adjective complement; as,—
"She is like some tender tree, the pride and beauty of the grove;" "The ruby seemed like a spark of fire burning upon her white bosom."
Such contracted sentences form a connecting link between our study of simple and complex sentences.
COMPLEX SENTENCES.
The simple sentence the basis.
367. Our investigations have now included all the machinery of the simple sentence, which is the unit of speech.
Our further study will be in sentences which are combinations of simple sentences, made merely for convenience and smoothness, to avoid the tiresome repetition of short ones of monotonous similarity.
Next to the simple sentence stands the complex sentence. The basis of it is two or more simple sentences, which are so united that one member is the main one,—the backbone,—the other members subordinate to it, or dependent on it; as in this sentence,—
"When such a spirit breaks forth into complaint, we are aware how great must be the suffering that extorts the murmur."
The relation of the parts is as follows:—
we are aware
_______ _____
| |
__| when such a spirit breaks
| forth into complaint,
|
how great must be the suffering
|
that extorts the murmur.
This arrangement shows to the eye the picture that the sentence forms in the mind,—how the first clause is held in suspense by the mind till the second, we are aware, is taken in; then we recognize this as the main statement; and the next one, how great ... suffering, drops into its place as subordinate to we are aware; and the last, that ... murmur, logically depends on suffering.
Hence the following definition:—
Definition.
368. A complex sentence is one containing one main or independent clause (also called the principal proposition or clause), and one or more subordinate or dependent clauses.
369. The elements of a complex sentence are the same as those of the simple sentence; that is, each clause has its subject, predicate, object, complements, modifiers, etc.
But there is this difference: whereas the simple sentence always has a word or a phrase for subject, object, complement, and modifier, the complex sentence has statements or clauses for these places.
CLAUSES.
Definition.
370. A clause is a division of a sentence, containing a verb with its subject.
Hence the term clause may refer to the main division of the complex sentence, or it may be applied to the others,—the dependent or subordinate clauses.
Independent clause.
371. A principal, main, or independent clause is one making a statement without the help of any other clause.
Dependent clause.
A subordinate or dependent clause is one which makes a statement depending upon or modifying some word in the principal clause.
Kinds.
372. As to their office in the sentence, clauses are divided into NOUN, ADJECTIVE, and ADVERB clauses, according as they are equivalent in use to nouns, adjectives, or adverbs.
Noun Clauses.
373. Noun clauses have the following uses:—
(1) Subject: "That such men should give prejudiced views of America is not a matter of surprise."
(2) Object of a verb, verbal, or the equivalent of a verb: (a) "I confess these stories, for a time, put an end to my fancies;" (b) "I am aware [I know] that a skillful illustrator of the immortal bard would have swelled the materials."
Just as the object noun, pronoun, infinitive, etc., is retained after a passive verb (Sec. 352, 5), so the object clause is retained, and should not be called an adjunct of the subject; for example, "We are persuaded that a thread runs through all things;" "I was told that the house had not been shut, night or day, for a hundred years."
(3) Complement: "The terms of admission to this spectacle are, that he have a certain solid and intelligible way of living."
(4) Apposition. (a) Ordinary apposition, explanatory of some noun or its equivalent: "Cecil's saying of Sir Walter Raleigh, 'I know that he can toil terribly,' is an electric touch."
(b) After "it introductory" (logically this is a subject clause, but it is often treated as in apposition with it): "It was the opinion of some, that this might be the wild huntsman famous in German legend."
(5) Object of a preposition: "At length he reached to where the ravine had opened through the cliffs."
Notice that frequently only the introductory word is the object of the preposition, and the whole clause is not; thus, "The rocks presented a high impenetrable wall, over which the torrent came tumbling."
374. Here are to be noticed certain sentences seemingly complex, with a noun clause in apposition with it; but logically they are nothing but simple sentences. But since they are complex in form, attention is called to them here; for example,—
"Alas! it is we ourselves that are getting buried alive under this avalanche of earthly impertinences."
To divide this into two clauses—(a) It is we ourselves, (b) that are ... impertinences—would be grammatical; but logically the sentence is, We ourselves are getting ... impertinences, and it is ... that is merely a framework used to effect emphasis. The sentence shows how it may lose its pronominal force.
Other examples of this construction are,—
"It is on the understanding, and not on the sentiment, of a nation, that all safe legislation must be based."
"Then it is that deliberative Eloquence lays aside the plain attire of her daily occupation."
Exercise.
Tell how each noun clause is used in these sentences:—
1. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow.
2. But the fact is, I was napping.
3. Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream, I scanned more narrowly the aspect of the building.
4. Except by what he could see for himself, he could know nothing.
5. Whatever he looks upon discloses a second sense.
6. It will not be pretended that a success in either of these kinds is quite coincident with what is best and inmost in his mind.
7. The reply of Socrates, to him who asked whether he should choose a wife, still remains reasonable, that, whether he should choose one or not, he would repent it.
8. What history it had, how it changed from shape to shape, no man will ever know.
9. Such a man is what we call an original man.
10. Our current hypothesis about Mohammed, that he was a scheming impostor, a falsehood incarnate, that his religion is a mere mass of quackery and fatuity, begins really to be no longer tenable to any one.
Adjective Clauses.
375. As the office of an adjective is to modify, the only use of an adjective clause is to limit or describe some noun, or equivalent of a noun: consequently the adjective may modify any noun, or equivalent of a noun, in the sentence.
The adjective clause may be introduced by the relative pronouns who, which, that, but, as; sometimes by the conjunctions when, where, whither, whence, wherein, whereby, etc.
Frequently there is no connecting word, a relative pronoun being understood.
Examples of adjective clauses.
376. Adjective clauses may modify—
(1) The subject: "The themes it offers for contemplation are too vast for their capacities;" "Those who see the Englishman only in town, are apt to form an unfavorable opinion of his social character."
(2) The object: "From this piazza Ichabod entered the hall, which formed the center of the mansion."
(3) The complement: "The animal he bestrode was a broken-down plow-horse, that had outlived almost everything but his usefulness;" "It was such an apparition as is seldom to be met with in broad daylight."
(4) Other words: "He rode with short stirrups, which brought his knees nearly up to the pommel of the saddle;" "No whit anticipating the oblivion which awaited their names and feats, the champions advanced through the lists;" "Charity covereth a multitude of sins, in another sense than that in which it is said to do so in Scripture."
Exercise.
Pick out the adjective clauses, and tell what each one modifies; i.e., whether subject, object, etc.
1. There were passages that reminded me perhaps too much of Massillon.
2. I walked home with Calhoun, who said that the principles which I had avowed were just and noble.
3. Other men are lenses through which we read our own minds.
4. In one of those celestial days when heaven and earth meet and adorn each other, it seems a pity that we can only spend it once.
5. One of the maidens presented a silver cup, containing a rich mixture of wine and spice, which Rowena tasted.
6. No man is reason or illumination, or that essence we were looking for.
7. In the moment when he ceases to help us as a cause, he begins to help us more as an effect.
8. Socrates took away all ignominy from the place, which could not be a prison whilst he was there.
9. This is perhaps the reason why we so seldom hear ghosts except in our long-established Dutch settlements.
10. From the moment you lose sight of the land you have left, all is vacancy.
11. Nature waited tranquilly for the hour to be struck when man should arrive.
Adverbial Clauses.
377. The adverb clause takes the place of an adverb in modifying a verb, a verbal, an adjective, or an adverb. The student has met with many adverb clauses in his study of the subjunctive mood and of subordinate conjunctions; but they require careful study, and will be given in detail, with examples.
378. Adverb clauses are of the following kinds:
(1) TIME: "As we go, the milestones are grave-stones;" "He had gone but a little way before he espied a foul fiend coming;" "When he was come up to Christian, he beheld him with a disdainful countenance."
(2) PLACE: "Wherever the sentiment of right comes in, it takes precedence of everything else;" "He went several times to England, where he does not seem to have attracted any attention."
(3) REASON, or CAUSE: "His English editor lays no stress on his discoveries, since he was too great to care to be original;" "I give you joy that truth is altogether wholesome."
(4) MANNER: "The knowledge of the past is valuable only as it leads us to form just calculations with respect to the future;" "After leaving the whole party under the table, he goes away as if nothing had happened."
(5) DEGREE, or COMPARISON: "They all become wiser than they were;" "The right conclusion is, that we should try, so far as we can, to make up our shortcomings;" "Master Simon was in as chirping a humor as a grasshopper filled with dew [is];" "The broader their education is, the wider is the horizon of their thought." The first clause in the last sentence is dependent, expressing the degree in which the horizon, etc., is wider.
(6) PURPOSE: "Nature took us in hand, shaping our actions, so that we might not be ended untimely by too gross disobedience."
(7) RESULT, or CONSEQUENCE: "He wrote on the scale of the mind itself, so that all things have symmetry in his tablet;" "The window was so far superior to every other in the church, that the vanquished artist killed himself from mortification."
(8) CONDITION: "If we tire of the saints, Shakespeare is our city of refuge;" "Who cares for that, so thou gain aught wider and nobler?" "You can die grandly, and as goddesses would die were goddesses mortal."
(9) CONCESSION, introduced by indefinite relatives, adverbs, and adverbial conjunctions,—whoever, whatever, however, etc.: "But still, however good she may be as a witness, Joanna is better;" "Whatever there may remain of illiberal in discussion, there is always something illiberal in the severer aspects of study."
These mean no matter how good, no matter what remains, etc.
Exercise.
Pick out the adverbial clauses in the following sentences; tell what kind each is, and what it modifies:—
1. As I was clearing away the weeds from this epitaph, the little sexton drew me on one side with a mysterious air, and informed me in a low voice that once upon a time, on a dark wintry night, when the wind was unruly, howling and whistling, banging about doors and windows, and twirling weathercocks, so that the living were frightened out of their beds, and even the dead could not sleep quietly in their graves, the ghost of honest Preston was attracted by the well-known call of "waiter," and made its sudden appearance just as the parish clerk was singing a stave from the "mirrie garland of Captain Death."
2. If the children gathered about her, as they sometimes did, Pearl would grow positively terrible in her puny wrath, snatching up stones to fling at them, with shrill, incoherent exclamations, that made her mother tremble because they had so much the sound of a witch's anathemas.
3. The spell of life went forth from her ever-creative spirit, and communicated itself to a thousand objects, as a torch kindles a flame wherever it may be applied.
ANALYZING COMPLEX SENTENCES.
379. These suggestions will be found helpful:—
(1) See that the sentence and all its parts are placed in the natural order of subject, predicate, object, and modifiers.
(2) First take the sentence as a whole; find the principal subject and principal predicate; then treat noun clauses as nouns, adjective clauses as adjectives modifying certain words, and adverb clauses as single modifying adverbs.
(3) Analyze each clause as a simple sentence. For example, in the sentence, "Cannot we conceive that Odin was a reality?" we is the principal subject; cannot conceive is the principal predicate; its object is that Odin was a reality, of which clause Odin is the subject, etc.
380. It is sometimes of great advantage to map out a sentence after analyzing it, so as to picture the parts and their relations. To take a sentence:—
"I cannot help thinking that the fault is in themselves, and that if the church and the cataract were in the habit of giving away their thoughts with that rash generosity which characterizes tourists, they might perhaps say of their visitors, 'Well, if you are those men of whom we have heard so much, we are a little disappointed, to tell the truth.'"
This may be represented as follows:—
I cannot help thinking
____________________
|
_______________________|
|
| (a) THAT THE FAULT IS IN THEMSELVES, AND
|
| (b) [THAT] THEY MIGHT (PERHAPS) SAY OF THEIR VISITORS
| ___________________
| |
| _____________________________|_________________________________
| | |
| | (a) We are (a little) disappointed |
| O| ___________________________ |
O| b| ________________________| |
b| j| M| |
j| e| o| (b) If you are those men |
e| c| d| ___ |
c| t| i| _________________________| |
t| | f| M| |
| | i| o| Of whom we have heard so much. |
| | e| d. |
| \ r\ \ |
| _____________________________________________________|
| M|
| o| (a) If the church and ... that rash generosity
| d| __________
| i| |
| f| _______________________________________________|
| i| |
| e| | (b) Which characterizes tourists.
| r| |
\ \ \
OUTLINE
381. (1) Find the principal clause.
(2) Analyze it according to Sec. 364.
(3) Analyze the dependent clauses according to Sec. 364. This of course includes dependent clauses that depend on other dependent clauses, as seen in the "map" (Sec. 380).
Exercises.
(a) Analyze the following complex sentences:—
1. Take the place and attitude which belong to you.
2. That mood into which a friend brings us is his dominion over us.
3. True art is only possible on the condition that every talent has its apotheosis somewhere.
4. The deep eyes, of a light hazel, were as full of sorrow as of inspiration.
5. She is the only church that has been loyal to the heart and soul of man, that has clung to her faith in the imagination.
6. She has never lost sight of the truth that the product human nature is composed of the sum of flesh and spirit.
7. But now that she has become an establishment, she begins to perceive that she made a blunder in trusting herself to the intellect alone.
8. Before long his talk would wander into all the universe, where it was uncertain what game you would catch, or whether any.
9. The night proved unusually dark, so that the two principals had to tie white handkerchiefs round their elbows in order to descry each other.
10. Whether she would ever awake seemed to depend upon an accident.
11. Here lay two great roads, not so much for travelers that were few, as for armies that were too many by half.
12. It was haunted to that degree by fairies, that the parish priest was obliged to read mass there once a year.
13. More than one military plan was entered upon which she did not approve.
14. As surely as the wolf retires before cities, does the fairy sequester herself from the haunts of the licensed victualer.
15. M. Michelet is anxious to keep us in mind that this bishop was but an agent of the English.
16. Next came a wretched Dominican, that pressed her with an objection, which, if applied to the Bible, would tax every miracle with unsoundness.
17. The reader ought to be reminded that Joanna D'Arc was subject to an unusually unfair trial.
18. Now, had she really testified this willingness on the scaffold, it would have argued nothing at all but the weakness of a genial nature.
19. And those will often pity that weakness most, who would yield to it least.
20. Whether she said the word is uncertain.
21. This is she, the shepherd girl, counselor that had none for herself, whom I choose, bishop, for yours.
22. Had they been better chemists, had we been worse, the mixed result, namely, that, dying for them, the flower should revive for us, could not have been effected.
23. I like that representation they have of the tree.
24. He was what our country people call an old one.
25. He thought not any evil happened to men of such magnitude as false opinion.
26. These things we are forced to say, if we must consider the effort of Plato to dispose of Nature,—which will not be disposed of.
27. He showed one who was afraid to go on foot to Olympia, that it was no more than his daily walk, if continuously extended, would easily reach.
28. What can we see or acquire but what we are?
29. Our eyes are holden that we cannot see things that stare us in the face, until the hour arrives when the mind is ripened.
30. There is good reason why we should prize this liberation.
(b) First analyze, then map out as in Sec. 380, the following complex sentences:—
1. The way to speak and write what shall not go out of fashion, is to speak and write sincerely.
2. The writer who takes his subject from his ear, and not from his heart, should know that he has lost as much as he has gained.
3. "No book," said Bentley, "was ever written down by any but itself."
4. That which we do not believe, we cannot adequately say, though we may repeat the words never so often.
5. We say so because we feel that what we love is not in your will, but above it.
6. It makes no difference how many friends I have, and what content I can find in conversing with each, if there be one to whom I am not equal.
7. In every troop of boys that whoop and run in each yard and square, a new-comer is as well and accurately weighed in the course of a few days, and stamped with his right number, as if he had undergone a formal trial of his strength, speed, and temper.
COMPOUND SENTENCES.
How formed.
382. The compound sentence is a combination of two or more simple or complex sentences. While the complex sentence has only one main clause, the compound has two or more independent clauses making statements, questions, or commands. Hence the definition,—
Definition.
383. A compound sentence is one which contains two or more independent clauses.
This leaves room for any number of subordinate clauses in a compound sentence: the requirement is simply that it have at least two independent clauses.
Examples of compound sentences:—
Examples.
(1) Simple sentences united: "He is a palace of sweet sounds and sights; he dilates; he is twice a man; he walks with arms akimbo; he soliloquizes."
(2) Simple with complex: "The trees of the forest, the waving grass, and the peeping flowers have grown intelligent; and he almost fears to trust them with the secret which they seem to invite."
(3) Complex with complex: "The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried."
384. From this it is evident that nothing new is added to the work of analysis already done.
The same analysis of simple sentences is repeated in (1) and (2) above, and what was done in complex sentences is repeated in (2) and (3).
The division into members will be easier, for the coördinate independent statements are readily taken apart with the subordinate clauses attached, if there are any.
Thus in (1), the semicolons cut apart the independent members, which are simple statements; in (2), the semicolon separates the first, a simple member, from the second, a complex member; in (3), and connects the first and second complex members, and nor the second and third complex members.
Connectives.
385. The coördinate conjunctions and, nor, or but, etc., introduce independent clauses (see Sec. 297).
But the conjunction is often omitted in copulative and adversative clauses, as in Sec. 383 (1). Another example is, "Only the star dazzles; the planet has a faint, moon-like ray" (adversative).
Study the thought.
386. The one point that will give trouble is the variable use of some connectives; as but, for, yet, while (whilst), however, whereas, etc. Some of these are now conjunctions, now adverbs or prepositions; others sometimes coördinate, sometimes subordinate conjunctions.
The student must watch the logical connection of the members of the sentence, and not the form of the connective.
Exercise.
Of the following illustrative sentences, tell which are compound, and which complex:—
1. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost.
2. I no longer wish to meet a good I do not earn, for example, to find a pot of buried gold.
3. Your goodness must have some edge to it—else it is none.
4. Man does not stand in awe of man, nor is his genius admonished to stay at home, but it goes abroad to beg a cup of water of the urns of other men.
5. A man cannot speak but he judges himself.
6. In your metaphysics you have denied personality to the Deity, yet when the devout motions of the soul come, yield to them heart and life.
7. I thought that it was a Sunday morning in May; that it was Easter Sunday, and as yet very early in the morning.
8. We denote the primary wisdom as intuition, whilst all later teachings are tuitions.
9. Whilst the world is thus dual, so is every one of its parts.
10. They measure the esteem of each other by what each has, and not by what each is.
11. For everything you have missed, you have gained something else; and for everything you gain, you lose something.
12. I sometimes seemed to have lived for seventy or one hundred years in one night; nay, I sometimes had feelings representative of a millennium, passed in that time, or, however, of a duration far beyond the limits of experience.
13. However some may think him wanting in zeal, the most fanatical can find no taint of apostasy in any measure of his.
14. In this manner, from a happy yet often pensive child, he grew up to be a mild, quiet, unobtrusive boy, and sun-browned with labor in the fields, but with more intelligence than is seen in many lads from the schools.
OUTLINE FOR ANALYZING COMPOUND SENTENCES.
387. (i) Separate it into its main members. (2) Analyze each complex member as in Sec. 381. (3) Analyze each simple member as in Sec. 364.
Exercise.
Analyze the following compound sentences:—
1. The gain is apparent; the tax is certain.
2. If I feel overshadowed and outdone by great neighbors, I can yet love; I can still receive; and he that loveth maketh his own the grandeur that he loves.
3. Love, and thou shalt be loved.
4. All loss, all pain, is particular; the universe remains to the heart unhurt.
5. Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth.
6. He teaches who gives, and he learns who receives.
7. Whatever he knows and thinks, whatever in his apprehension is worth doing, that let him communicate, or men will never know and honor him aright.
8. Stand aside; give those merits room; let them mount and expand.
9. We see the noble afar off, and they repel us; why should we intrude?
10. We go to Europe, or we pursue persons, or we read books, in the instinctive faith that these will call it out and reveal us to ourselves.
11. A gay and pleasant sound is the whetting of the scythe in the mornings of June, yet what is more lonesome and sad than the sound of a whetstone or mower's rifle when it is too late in the season to make hay?
12. "Strike," says the smith, "the iron is white;" "keep the rake," says the haymaker, "as nigh the scythe as you can, and the cart as nigh the rake."
13. Trust men, and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great, though they make an exception in your favor to all their rules of trade.
14. On the most profitable lie the course of events presently lays a destructive tax; whilst frankness invites frankness, puts the parties on a convenient footing, and makes their business a friendship.
15. The sturdiest offender of your peace and of the neighborhood, if you rip up his claims, is as thin and timid as any; and the peace of society is often kept, because, as children, one is afraid, and the other dares not.
16. They will shuffle and crow, crook and hide, feign to confess here, only that they may brag and conquer there, and not a thought has enriched either party, and not an emotion of bravery, modesty, or hope.
17. The magic they used was the ideal tendencies, which always make the Actual ridiculous; but the tough world had its revenge the moment they put their horses of the sun to plow in its furrow.
18. Come into port greatly, or sail with God the seas.
19. When you have chosen your part, abide by it, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world.
20. Times of heroism are generally times of terror, but the day never shines in which this element may not work.
21. Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and as we pass through them they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue, and each shows only what lies at its focus.
22. We see young men who owe us a new world, so readily and lavishly they promise, but they never acquit the debt; they die young, and dodge the account; or, if they live, they lose themselves in the crowd.
23. So does culture with us; it ends in headache.
24. Do not craze yourself with thinking, but go about your business anywhere.
25. Thus journeys the mighty Ideal before us; it never was known to fall into the rear.
Read more
A general idea of analysis was needed in our study of the parts of speech,—in determining case, subject and predicate, clauses introduced by conjunctions, etc.
Value of analysis.
A more thorough and accurate acquaintance with the subject is necessary for two reasons,—not only for a correct understanding of the principles of syntax, but for the study of punctuation and other topics treated in rhetoric.
336. A sentence is the expression of a thought in words.
Kinds of sentences as to form.
337. According to the way in which a thought is put before a listener or reader, sentences may be of three kinds:—
(1) Declarative, which puts the thought in the form of a declaration or assertion. This is the most common one.
(2) Interrogative, which puts the thought in a question.
(3) Imperative, which expresses command, entreaty, or request.
Any one of these may be put in the form of an exclamation, but the sentence would still be declarative, interrogative, or imperative; hence, according to form, there are only the three kinds of sentences already named.
Examples of these three kinds are, declarative, "Old year, you must not die!" interrogative, "Hath he not always treasures, always friends?" imperative, "Come to the bridal chamber, Death!"
CLASSIFICATION ACCORDING TO NUMBER OF STATEMENTS.
SIMPLE SENTENCES.
Division according to number of statements.
338. But the division of sentences most necessary to analysis is the division, not according to the form in which a thought is put, but according to how many statements there are.
The one we shall consider first is the simple sentence.
Definition.
339. A simple sentence is one which contains a single statement, question, or command: for example, "The quality of mercy is not strained;" "What wouldst thou do, old man?" "Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar."
340. Every sentence must contain two parts,—a subject and a predicate.
Definition: Predicate.
The predicate of a sentence is a verb or verb phrase which says something about the subject.
In order to get a correct definition of the subject, let us examine two specimen sentences:—
1. But now all is to be changed.
2. A rare old plant is the ivy green.
In the first sentence we find the subject by placing the word what before the predicate,—What is to be changed? Answer, all. Consequently, we say all is the subject of the sentence.
But if we try this with the second sentence, we have some trouble,—What is the ivy green? Answer, a rare old plant. But we cannot help seeing that an assertion is made, not of a rare old plant, but about the ivy green; and the real subject is the latter. Sentences are frequently in this inverted order, especially in poetry; and our definition must be the following, to suit all cases:—
Subject.
The subject is that which answers the question who or what placed before the predicate, and which at the same time names that of which the predicate says something.
The subject in interrogative and imperative simple sentences.
341. In the interrogative sentence, the subject is frequently after the verb. Either the verb is the first word of the sentence, or an interrogative pronoun, adjective, or adverb that asks about the subject. In analyzing such sentences, always reduce them to the order of a statement. Thus,—
(1) "When should this scientific education be commenced?"
(2) "This scientific education should be commenced when?"
(3) "What wouldst thou have a good great man obtain?"
(4) "Thou wouldst have a good great man obtain what?"
In the imperative sentence, the subject (you, thou, or ye) is in most cases omitted, and is to be supplied; as, "[You] behold her single in the field."
Exercise.
Name the subject and the predicate in each of the following sentences:—
1.
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves.
2. Hence originated their contempt for terrestrial distinctions.
3. Nowhere else on the Mount of Olives is there a view like this.
4. In the sands of Africa and Arabia the camel is a sacred and precious gift.
5. The last of all the Bards was he.
6. Slavery they can have anywhere.
7. Listen, on the other hand, to an ignorant man.
8. What must have been the emotions of the Spaniards!
9. Such was not the effect produced on the sanguine spirit of the general.
10. What a contrast did these children of southern Europe present to the Anglo-Saxon races!
ELEMENTS OF THE SIMPLE SENTENCE.
342. All the elements of the simple sentence are as follows:—
(1) The subject.
(2) The predicate.
(3) The object.
(4) The complements.
(5) Modifiers.
(6) Independent elements.
The subject and predicate have been discussed.
343. The object may be of two kinds:—
Definitions. Direct Object.
(1) The DIRECT OBJECT is that word or expression which answers the question who or what placed after the verb; or the direct object names that toward which the action of the predicate is directed.
It must be remembered that any verbal may have an object; but for the present we speak of the object of the verb, and by object we mean the direct object.
Indirect object.
(2) The INDIRECT OBJECT is a noun or its equivalent used as the modifier of a verb or verbal to name the person or thing for whose benefit an action is performed.
Examples of direct and indirect objects are, direct, "She seldom saw her course at a glance;" indirect, "I give thee this to wear at the collar."
Complement:
344. A complement is a word added to a verb of incomplete predication to complete its meaning.
Notice that a verb of incomplete predication may be of two kinds,—transitive and intransitive.
Of a transitive verb.
The transitive verb often requires, in addition to the object, a word to define fully the action that is exerted upon the object; for example, "Ye call me chief." Here the verb call has an object me (if we leave out chief), and means summoned; but chief belongs to the verb, and me here is not the object simply of call, but of call chief, just as if to say, "Ye honor me." This word completing a transitive verb is sometimes called a factitive object, or second object, but it is a true complement.
The fact that this is a complement can be more clearly seen when the verb is in the passive. See sentence 19, in exercise following Sec. 364.
Complement of an intransitive verb.
An intransitive verb, especially the forms of be, seem, appear, taste, feel, become, etc., must often have a word to complete the meaning: as, for instance, "Brow and head were round, and of massive weight;" "The good man, he was now getting old, above sixty;" "Nothing could be more copious than his talk;" "But in general he seemed deficient in laughter."
All these complete intransitive verbs. The following are examples of complements of transitive verbs: "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick;" "He was termed Thomas, or, more familiarly, Thom of the Gills;" "A plentiful fortune is reckoned necessary, in the popular judgment, to the completion of this man of the world."
345. The modifiers and independent elements will be discussed in detail in Secs. 351, 352, 355.
Phrases.
346. A phrase is a group of words, not containing a verb, but used as a single modifier.
As to form, phrases are of three kinds:—
Three kinds.
(1) PREPOSITIONAL, introduced by a preposition: for example, "Such a convulsion is the struggle of gradual suffocation, as in drowning; and, in the original Opium Confessions, I mentioned a case of that nature."
(2) PARTICIPIAL, consisting of a participle and the words dependent on it. The following are examples: "Then retreating into the warm house, and barring the door, she sat down to undress the two youngest children."
(3) INFINITIVE, consisting of an infinitive and the words dependent upon it; as in the sentence, "She left her home forever in order to present herself at the Dauphin's court."
Things used as Subject.
347. The subject of a simple sentence may be—
(1) Noun: "There seems to be no interval between greatness and meanness." Also an expression used as a noun; as, "A cheery, 'Ay, ay, sir!' rang out in response."
(2) Pronoun: "We are fortified by every heroic anecdote."
(3) Infinitive phrase: "To enumerate and analyze these relations is to teach the science of method."
(4) Gerund: "There will be sleeping enough in the grave;" "What signifies wishing and hoping for better things?"
(5) Adjective used as noun: "The good are befriended even by weakness and defect;" "The dead are there."
(6) Adverb: "Then is the moment for the humming bird to secure the insects."
348. The subject is often found after the verb—
(1) By simple inversion: as, "Therein has been, and ever will be, my deficiency,—the talent of starting the game;" "Never, from their lips, was heard one syllable to justify," etc.
(2) In interrogative sentences, for which see Sec. 341.
(3) After "it introductory:" "It ought not to need to print in a reading room a caution not to read aloud."
In this sentence, it stands in the position of a grammatical subject; but the real or logical subject is to print, etc. It merely serves to throw the subject after a verb.
Disguised infinitive subject.
There is one kind of expression that is really an infinitive, though disguised as a prepositional phrase: "It is hard for honest men to separate their country from their party, or their religion from their sect."
The for did not belong there originally, but obscures the real subject,—the infinitive phrase. Compare Chaucer: "No wonder is a lewed man to ruste" (No wonder [it] is [for] a common man to rust).
(4) After "there introductory," which has the same office as it in reversing the order (see Sec. 292): "There was a description of the destructive operations of time;" "There are asking eyes, asserting eyes, prowling eyes."
Things used as Direct Object.
349. The words used as direct object are mainly the same as those used for subject, but they will be given in detail here, for the sake of presenting examples:—
(1) Noun: "Each man has his own vocation." Also expressions used as nouns: for example, "'By God, and by Saint George!' said the King."
(2) Pronoun: "Memory greets them with the ghost of a smile."
(3) Infinitive: "We like to see everything do its office."
(4) Gerund: "She heard that sobbing of litanies, or the thundering of organs."
(5) Adjective used as a noun: "For seventy leagues through the mighty cathedral, I saw the quick and the dead."
Things used as Complement.
Complement: Of an intransitive verb.
350. As complement of an intransitive verb,—
(1) Noun: "She had been an ardent patriot."
(2) Pronoun: "Who is she in bloody coronation robes from Rheims?" "This is she, the shepherd girl."
(3) Adjective: "Innocence is ever simple and credulous."
(4) Infinitive: "To enumerate and analyze these relations is to teach the science of method."
(5) Gerund: "Life is a pitching of this penny,—heads or tails;" "Serving others is serving us."
(6) A prepositional phrase: "His frame is on a larger scale;" "The marks were of a kind not to be mistaken."
It will be noticed that all these complements have a double office,—completing the predicate, and explaining or modifying the subject.
Of a transitive verb.
As complement of a transitive verb,—
(1) Noun: "I will not call you cowards."
(2) Adjective: "Manners make beauty superfluous and ugly;" "Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and malleable in the fiery furnace of domestic tribulation." In this last sentence, the object is made the subject by being passive, and the words italicized are still complements. Like all the complements in this list, they are adjuncts of the object, and, at the same time, complements of the predicate.
(3) Infinitive, or infinitive phrase: "That cry which made me look a thousand ways;" "I hear the echoes throng."
(4) Participle, or participial phrase: "I can imagine him pushing firmly on, trusting the hearts of his countrymen."
(5) Prepositional phrase: "My antagonist would render my poniard and my speed of no use to me."
Modifiers.
I. Modifiers of Subject, Object, or Complement.
351. Since the subject and object are either nouns or some equivalent of a noun, the words modifying them must be adjectives or some equivalent of an adjective; and whenever the complement is a noun, or the equivalent of the noun, it is modified by the same words and word groups that modify the subject and the object.
These modifiers are as follows:—
(1) A possessive: "My memory assures me of this;" "She asked her father's permission."
(2) A word in apposition: "Theodore Wieland, the prisoner at the bar, was now called upon for his defense;" "Him, this young idolater, I have seasoned for thee."
(3) An adjective: "Great geniuses have the shortest biographies;" "Her father was a prince in Lebanon,—proud, unforgiving, austere."
(4) Prepositional phrase: "Are the opinions of a man on right and wrong on fate and causation, at the mercy of a broken sleep or an indigestion?" "The poet needs a ground in popular tradition to work on."
(5) Infinitive phrase: "The way to know him is to compare him, not with nature, but with other men;" "She has a new and unattempted problem to solve;" "The simplest utterances are worthiest to be written."
(6) Participial phrase: "Another reading, given at the request of a Dutch lady, was the scene from King John;" "This was the hour already appointed for the baptism of the new Christian daughter."
Exercise.—In each sentence in Sec. 351, tell whether the subject, object, or complement is modified.
II. Modifiers of the Predicate.
352. Since the predicate is always a verb, the word modifying it must be an adverb or its equivalent:—
(1) Adverb: "Slowly and sadly we laid him down."
(2) Prepositional phrase: "The little carriage is creeping on at one mile an hour;" "In the twinkling of an eye, our horses had carried us to the termination of the umbrageous isle."
In such a sentence as, "He died like a God," the word group like a God is often taken as a phrase; but it is really a contracted clause, the verb being omitted.
Tells how.
(3) Participial phrase: "She comes down from heaven to his help, interpreting for him the most difficult truths, and leading him from star to star."
(4) Infinitive phrase: "No imprudent, no sociable angel, ever dropped an early syllable to answer his longing."
(For participial and infinitive phrases, see further Secs. 357-363.)
(5) Indirect object: "I gave every man a trumpet;" "Give them not only noble teachings, but noble teachers."
These are equivalent to the phrases to every man and to them, and modify the predicate in the same way.
Retained with passive; or
When the verb is changed from active to passive, the indirect object is retained, as in these sentences: "It is left you to find out the reason why;" "All such knowledge should be given her."
subject of passive verb and direct object retained.
Or sometimes the indirect object of the active voice becomes the subject of the passive, and the direct object is retained: for example, "She is to be taught to extend the limits of her sympathy;" "I was shown an immense sarcophagus."
(6) Adverbial objective. These answer the question when, or how long, how far, etc., and are consequently equivalent to adverbs in modifying a predicate: "We were now running thirteen miles an hour;" "One way lies hope;" "Four hours before midnight we approached a mighty minster."
Exercises.
(a) Pick out subject, predicate, and (direct) object:—
1. This, and other measures of precaution, I took.
2. The pursuing the inquiry under the light of an end or final cause, gives wonderful animation, a sort of personality to the whole writing.
3. Why does the horizon hold me fast, with my joy and grief, in this center?
4. His books have no melody, no emotion, no humor, no relief to the dead prosaic level.
5. On the voyage to Egypt, he liked, after dinner, to fix on three or four persons to support a proposition, and as many to oppose it.
6. Fashion does not often caress the great, but the children of the great.
7. No rent roll can dignify skulking and dissimulation.
8. They do not wish to be lovely, but to be loved.
(b) Pick out the subject, predicate, and complement:
*
1. Evil, according to old philosophers, is good in the making.
*
2. But anger drives a man to say anything.
*
3. The teachings of the High Spirit are abstemious, and, in regard to particulars, negative.
*
4. Spanish diet and youth leave the digestion undisordered and the slumbers light.
*
5. Yet they made themselves sycophantic servants of the King of Spain.
*
6. A merciless oppressor hast thou been.
*
7. To the men of this world, to the animal strength and spirits, the man of ideas appears out of his reason.
*
8. I felt myself, for the first time, burthened with the anxieties of a man, and a member of the world.
(c) Pick out the direct and the indirect object in each:—
*
1. Not the less I owe thee justice.
*
2. Unhorse me, then, this imperial rider.
*
3. She told the first lieutenant part of the truth.
*
4. I promised her protection against all ghosts.
*
5. I gave him an address to my friend, the attorney.
*
6. Paint me, then, a room seventeen feet by twelve.
(d) Pick out the words and phrases in apposition:—
*
1. To suffer and to do, that was thy portion in life.
*
2. A river formed the boundary,—the river Meuse.
*
3. In one feature, Lamb resembles Sir Walter Scott; viz., in the dramatic character of his mind and taste.
*
4. This view was luminously expounded by Archbishop Whately, the present Archbishop of Dublin.
*
5. Yes, at length the warrior lady, the blooming cornet, this nun so martial, this dragoon so lovely, must visit again the home of her childhood.
(e) Pick out the modifiers of the predicate:—
*
1. It moves from one flower to another like a gleam of light, upwards, downwards, to the right and to the left.
*
2.
*
And hark! like the roar of the billows on the shore,
The cry of battle rises along their changing line.
*
3. Their intention was to have a gay, happy dinner, after their long confinement to a ship, at the chief hotel.
*
4. That night, in little peaceful Easedale, six children sat by a peat fire, expecting the return of their parents.
Compound Subject, Compound Predicate, etc.
Not compound sentences.
353. Frequently in a simple sentence the writer uses two or more predicates to the same subject, two or more subjects of the same predicate, several modifiers, complements, etc.; but it is to be noticed that, in all such sentences as we quote below, the writers of them purposely combined them in single statements, and they are not to be expanded into compound sentences. In a compound sentence the object is to make two or more full statements.
Examples of compound subjects are, "By degrees Rip's awe and apprehension subsided;" "The name of the child, the air of the mother, the tone of her voice,—all awakened a train of recollections in his mind."
Sentences with compound predicates are, "The company broke up, and returned to the more important concerns of the election;" "He shook his head, shouldered the rusty firelock, and, with a heart full of trouble and anxiety, turned his steps homeward."
Sentences with compound objects of the same verb are, "He caught his daughter and her child in his arms;" "Voyages and travels I would also have."
And so with complements, modifiers, etc.
Logical Subject and Logical Predicate.
354. The logical subject is the simple or grammatical subject, together with all its modifiers.
The logical predicate is the simple or grammatical predicate (that is, the verb), together with its modifiers, and its object or complement.
Larger view of a sentence.
It is often a help to the student to find the logical subject and predicate first, then the grammatical subject and predicate. For example, in the sentence, "The situation here contemplated exposes a dreadful ulcer, lurking far down in the depths of human nature," the logical subject is the situation here contemplated, and the rest is the logical predicate. Of this, the simple subject is situation; the predicate, exposes; the object, ulcer, etc.
Independent Elements of the Sentence.
355. The following words and expressions are grammatically independent of the rest of the sentence; that is, they are not a necessary part, do not enter into its structure:—
(1) Person or thing addressed: "But you know them, Bishop;" "Ye crags and peaks, I'm with you once again."
(2) Exclamatory expressions: "But the lady—! Oh, heavens! will that spectacle ever depart from my dreams?"
Caution.
The exclamatory expression, however, may be the person or thing addressed, same as (1), above: thus, "Ah, young sir! what are you about?" Or it may be an imperative, forming a sentence: "Oh, hurry, hurry, my brave young man!"
(3) Infinitive phrase thrown in loosely: "To make a long story short, the company broke up;" "Truth to say, he was a conscientious man."
(4) Prepositional phrase not modifying: "Within the railing sat, to the best of my remembrance, six quill-driving gentlemen;" "At all events, the great man of the prophecy had not yet appeared."
(5) Participial phrase: "But, generally speaking, he closed his literary toils at dinner;" "Considering the burnish of her French tastes, her noticing even this is creditable."
(6) Single words: as, "Oh, yes! everybody knew them;" "No, let him perish;" "Well, he somehow lived along;" "Why, grandma, how you're winking!" "Now, this story runs thus."
Another caution.
There are some adverbs, such as perhaps, truly, really, undoubtedly, besides, etc., and some conjunctions, such as however, then, moreover, therefore, nevertheless, etc., that have an office in the sentence, and should not be confused with the words spoken of above. The words well, now, why, and so on, are independent when they merely arrest the attention without being necessary.
PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES.
356. In their use, prepositional phrases may be,
(1) Adjectival, modifying a noun, pronoun, or word used as a noun: for example, "He took the road to King Richard's pavilion;" "I bring reports on that subject from Ascalon."
(2) Adverbial, limiting in the same way an adverb limits: as, "All nature around him slept in calm moonshine or in deep shadow;" "Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife."
(3) Independent, not dependent on any word in the sentence (for examples, see Sec. 355, 4).
PARTICIPLES AND PARTICIPIAL PHRASES.
357. It will be helpful to sum up here the results of our study of participles and participial phrases, and to set down all the uses which are of importance in analysis:—
(1) The adjectival use, already noticed, as follows:—
*
(a) As a complement of a transitive verb, and at the same time a modifier of the object (for an example, see Sec. 350, 4).
*
(b) As a modifier of subject, object, or complement (see Sec. 351, 6).
(2) The adverbial use, modifying the predicate, instances of which were seen in Sec. 352, 3. In these the participial phrases connect closely with the verb, and there is no difficulty in seeing that they modify.
These need close watching.
There are other participial phrases which are used adverbially, but require somewhat closer attention; thus, "The letter of introduction, containing no matters of business, was speedily run through."
In this sentence, the expression containing no matters of business does not describe letter, but it is equivalent to because it contained no matters of business, and hence is adverbial, modifying was speedily run through.
Notice these additional examples:—
Being a great collector of everything relating to Milton [reason, "Because I was," etc.], I had naturally possessed myself of Richardson the painter's thick octavo volumes.
Neither the one nor the other writer was valued by the public, both having [since they had] a long warfare to accomplish of contumely and ridicule.
Wilt thou, therefore, being now wiser [as thou art] in thy thoughts, suffer God to give by seeming to refuse?
(3) Wholly independent in meaning and grammar. See Sec. 355, (5), and these additional examples:—
Assuming the specific heat to be the same as that of water, the entire mass of the sun would cool down to 15,000° Fahrenheit in five thousand years.
This case excepted, the French have the keenest possible sense of everything odious and ludicrous in posing.
INFINITIVES AND INFINITIVE PHRASES.
358. The various uses of the infinitive give considerable trouble, and they will be presented here in full, or as nearly so as the student will require.
I. The verbal use. (1) Completing an incomplete verb, but having no other office than a verbal one.
*
(a) With may (might),can (could),should,would,seem, ought, etc.: "My weekly bill used invariably to be about fifty shillings;" "There, my dear, he should not have known them at all;" "He would instruct her in the white man's religion, and teach her how to be happy and good."
*
(b) With the forms of be, being equivalent to a future with obligation, necessity, etc.: as in the sentences, "Ingenuity and cleverness are to be rewarded by State prizes;" "'The Fair Penitent' was to be acted that evening."
*
(c) With the definite forms of go, equivalent to a future: "I was going to repeat my remonstrances;" "I am not going to dissert on Hood's humor."
(2) Completing an incomplete transitive verb, but also belonging to a subject or an object (see Sec. 344 for explanation of the complements of transitive verbs): "I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher origin for events" (retained with passive); "Do they not cause the heart to beat, and the eyes to fill?"
359. II. The substantive use, already examined; but see the following examples for further illustration:—
(1) As the subject: "To have the wall there, was to have the foe's life at their mercy;" "To teach is to learn."
(2) As the object: "I like to hear them tell their old stories;" "I don't wish to detract from any gentleman's reputation."
(3) As complement: See examples under (1), above.
(4) In apposition, explanatory of a noun preceding: as, "She forwarded to the English leaders a touching invitation to unite with the French;" "He insisted on his right to forget her."
360. III. The adjectival use, modifying a noun that may be a subject, object, complement, etc.: for example, "But there was no time to be lost;" "And now Amyas had time to ask Ayacanora the meaning of this;" "I have such a desire to be well with my public" (see also Sec. 351, 5).
361. IV. The adverbial use, which may be to express—
(1) Purpose: "The governor, Don Guzman, sailed to the eastward only yesterday to look for you;" "Isn't it enough to bring us to death, to please that poor young gentleman's fancy?"
(2) Result: "Don Guzman returns to the river mouth to find the ship a blackened wreck;" "What heart could be so hard as not to take pity on the poor wild thing?"
(3) Reason: "I am quite sorry to part with them;" "Are you mad, to betray yourself by your own cries?" "Marry, hang the idiot, to bring me such stuff!"
(4) Degree: "We have won gold enough to serve us the rest of our lives;" "But the poor lady was too sad to talk except to the boys now and again."
(5) Condition: "You would fancy, to hear McOrator after dinner, the Scotch fighting all the battles;" "To say what good of fashion we can, it rests on reality" (the last is not a simple sentence, but it furnishes a good example of this use of the infinitive).
362. The fact that the infinitives in Sec. 361 are used adverbially, is evident from the meaning of the sentences.
Whether each sentence containing an adverbial infinitive has the meaning of purpose, result, etc., may be found out by turning the infinitive into an equivalent clause, such as those studied under subordinate conjunctions.
To test this, notice the following:—
In (1), to look means that he might look; to please is equivalent to that he may please,—both purpose clauses.
In (2), to find shows the result of the return; not to take pity is equivalent to that it would not take pity.
In (3), to part means because I part, etc.; and to betray and to bring express the reason, equivalent to that you betray, etc.
In (4), to serve and to talk are equivalent to [as much gold] as will serve us; and "too sad to talk" also shows degree.
In (5), to hear means if you should hear, and to say is equivalent to if we say,—both expressing condition.
363. V. The independent use, which is of two kinds,—
(1) Thrown loosely into the sentence; as in Sec. 355, (3).
(2) Exclamatory: "I a philosopher! I advance pretensions;" "'He to die!' resumed the bishop." (See also Sec. 268, 4.)
OUTLINE OF ANALYSIS.
364. In analyzing simple sentences, give—
(1) The predicate. If it is an incomplete verb, give the complement (Secs. 344 and 350) and its modifiers (Sec. 351).
(2) The object of the verb (Sec. 349).
(3) Modifiers of the object (Sec. 351).
(4) Modifiers of the predicate (Sec. 352).
(5) The subject (Sec. 347).
(6) Modifiers of the subject (Sec. 351).
(7) Independent elements (Sec. 355).
This is not the same order that the parts of the sentence usually have; but it is believed that the student will proceed more easily by finding the predicate with its modifiers, object, etc., and then finding the subject by placing the question who or what before it.
Exercise in Analyzing Simple Sentences.
Analyze the following according to the directions given:—
1. Our life is March weather, savage and serene in one hour.
2. I will try to keep the balance true.
3. The questions of Whence? What? and Whither? and the solution of these, must be in a life, not in a book.
4. The ward meetings on election days are not softened by any misgiving of the value of these ballotings.
5. Our English Bible is a wonderful specimen of the strength and music of the English language.
6. Through the years and the centuries, through evil agents, through toys and atoms, a great and beneficent tendency irresistibly streams.
7. To be hurried away by every event, is to have no political system at all.
8. This mysticism the ancients called ecstasy,—a getting-out of their bodies to think.
9. He risked everything, and spared nothing, neither ammunition, nor money, nor troops, nor generals, nor himself.
10. We are always in peril, always in a bad plight, just on the edge of destruction, and only to be saved by invention and courage.
11. His opinion is always original, and to the purpose.
12. To these gifts of nature, Napoleon added the advantage of having been born to a private and humble fortune.
13.
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green and blue and white.
14. We one day descried some shapeless object floating at a distance.
15.
Old Adam, the carrion crow,
The old crow of Cairo;
He sat in the shower, and let it flow
Under his tail and over his crest.
16. It costs no more for a wise soul to convey his quality to other men.
17. It is easy to sugar to be sweet.
18. At times the black volume of clouds overhead seemed rent asunder by flashes of lightning.
19. The whole figure and air, good and amiable otherwise, might be called flabby and irresolute.
20. I have heard Coleridge talk, with eager energy, two stricken hours, and communicate no meaning whatsoever to any individual.
21. The word conscience has become almost confined, in popular use, to the moral sphere.
22. You may ramble a whole day together, and every moment discover something new.
23. She had grown up amidst the liberal culture of Henry's court a bold horsewoman, a good shot, a graceful dancer, a skilled musician, an accomplished scholar.
24. Her aims were simple and obvious,—to preserve her throne, to keep England out of war, to restore civil and religious order.
25.
Fair name might he have handed down,
Effacing many a stain of former crime.
26. Of the same grandeur, in less heroic and poetic form, was the patriotism of Peel in recent history.
27. Oxford, ancient mother! hoary with ancestral honors, time-honored, and, haply, time-shattered power—I owe thee nothing!
28. The villain, I hate him and myself, to be a reproach to such goodness.
29. I dare this, upon my own ground, and in my own garden, to bid you leave the place now and forever.
30. Upon this shore stood, ready to receive her, in front of all this mighty crowd, the prime minister of Spain, the same Condé Olivarez.
31. Great was their surprise to see a young officer in uniform stretched within the bushes upon the ground.
32. She had made a two days' march, baggage far in the rear, and no provisions but wild berries.
33. This amiable relative, an elderly man, had but one foible, or perhaps one virtue, in this world.
34. Now, it would not have been filial or ladylike.
35. Supposing this computation to be correct, it must have been in the latitude of Boston, the present capital of New England.
36. The cry, "A strange vessel close aboard the frigate!" having already flown down the hatches, the ship was in an uproar.
37.
But yield, proud foe, thy fleet
With the crews at England's feet.
38. Few in number, and that number rapidly perishing away through sickness and hardships; surrounded by a howling wilderness and savage tribes; exposed to the rigors of an almost arctic winter,—their minds were filled with doleful forebodings.
39. List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest.
40.
In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas,
Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pré
Lay in the fruitful valley.
41. Must we in all things look for the how, and the why, and the wherefore?
CONTRACTED SENTENCES.
Words left out after than or as.
365. Some sentences look like simple ones in form, but have an essential part omitted that is so readily supplied by the mind as not to need expressing. Such are the following:—
"There is no country more worthy of our study than England [is worthy of our study]."
"The distinctions between them do not seem to be so marked as [they are marked] in the cities."
To show that these words are really omitted, compare with them the two following:—
"The nobility and gentry are more popular among the inferior orders than they are in any other country."
"This is not so universally the case at present as it was formerly."
Sentences with like.
366. As shown in Part I. (Sec. 333). the expressions of manner introduced by like, though often treated as phrases, are really contracted clauses; but, if they were expanded, as would be the connective instead of like; thus,—
"They'll shine o'er her sleep, like [as] a smile from the west [would shine].
From her own loved island of sorrow."
This must, however, be carefully discriminated from cases where like is an adjective complement; as,—
"She is like some tender tree, the pride and beauty of the grove;" "The ruby seemed like a spark of fire burning upon her white bosom."
Such contracted sentences form a connecting link between our study of simple and complex sentences.
COMPLEX SENTENCES.
The simple sentence the basis.
367. Our investigations have now included all the machinery of the simple sentence, which is the unit of speech.
Our further study will be in sentences which are combinations of simple sentences, made merely for convenience and smoothness, to avoid the tiresome repetition of short ones of monotonous similarity.
Next to the simple sentence stands the complex sentence. The basis of it is two or more simple sentences, which are so united that one member is the main one,—the backbone,—the other members subordinate to it, or dependent on it; as in this sentence,—
"When such a spirit breaks forth into complaint, we are aware how great must be the suffering that extorts the murmur."
The relation of the parts is as follows:—
we are aware
_______ _____
| |
__| when such a spirit breaks
| forth into complaint,
|
how great must be the suffering
|
that extorts the murmur.
This arrangement shows to the eye the picture that the sentence forms in the mind,—how the first clause is held in suspense by the mind till the second, we are aware, is taken in; then we recognize this as the main statement; and the next one, how great ... suffering, drops into its place as subordinate to we are aware; and the last, that ... murmur, logically depends on suffering.
Hence the following definition:—
Definition.
368. A complex sentence is one containing one main or independent clause (also called the principal proposition or clause), and one or more subordinate or dependent clauses.
369. The elements of a complex sentence are the same as those of the simple sentence; that is, each clause has its subject, predicate, object, complements, modifiers, etc.
But there is this difference: whereas the simple sentence always has a word or a phrase for subject, object, complement, and modifier, the complex sentence has statements or clauses for these places.
CLAUSES.
Definition.
370. A clause is a division of a sentence, containing a verb with its subject.
Hence the term clause may refer to the main division of the complex sentence, or it may be applied to the others,—the dependent or subordinate clauses.
Independent clause.
371. A principal, main, or independent clause is one making a statement without the help of any other clause.
Dependent clause.
A subordinate or dependent clause is one which makes a statement depending upon or modifying some word in the principal clause.
Kinds.
372. As to their office in the sentence, clauses are divided into NOUN, ADJECTIVE, and ADVERB clauses, according as they are equivalent in use to nouns, adjectives, or adverbs.
Noun Clauses.
373. Noun clauses have the following uses:—
(1) Subject: "That such men should give prejudiced views of America is not a matter of surprise."
(2) Object of a verb, verbal, or the equivalent of a verb: (a) "I confess these stories, for a time, put an end to my fancies;" (b) "I am aware [I know] that a skillful illustrator of the immortal bard would have swelled the materials."
Just as the object noun, pronoun, infinitive, etc., is retained after a passive verb (Sec. 352, 5), so the object clause is retained, and should not be called an adjunct of the subject; for example, "We are persuaded that a thread runs through all things;" "I was told that the house had not been shut, night or day, for a hundred years."
(3) Complement: "The terms of admission to this spectacle are, that he have a certain solid and intelligible way of living."
(4) Apposition. (a) Ordinary apposition, explanatory of some noun or its equivalent: "Cecil's saying of Sir Walter Raleigh, 'I know that he can toil terribly,' is an electric touch."
(b) After "it introductory" (logically this is a subject clause, but it is often treated as in apposition with it): "It was the opinion of some, that this might be the wild huntsman famous in German legend."
(5) Object of a preposition: "At length he reached to where the ravine had opened through the cliffs."
Notice that frequently only the introductory word is the object of the preposition, and the whole clause is not; thus, "The rocks presented a high impenetrable wall, over which the torrent came tumbling."
374. Here are to be noticed certain sentences seemingly complex, with a noun clause in apposition with it; but logically they are nothing but simple sentences. But since they are complex in form, attention is called to them here; for example,—
"Alas! it is we ourselves that are getting buried alive under this avalanche of earthly impertinences."
To divide this into two clauses—(a) It is we ourselves, (b) that are ... impertinences—would be grammatical; but logically the sentence is, We ourselves are getting ... impertinences, and it is ... that is merely a framework used to effect emphasis. The sentence shows how it may lose its pronominal force.
Other examples of this construction are,—
"It is on the understanding, and not on the sentiment, of a nation, that all safe legislation must be based."
"Then it is that deliberative Eloquence lays aside the plain attire of her daily occupation."
Exercise.
Tell how each noun clause is used in these sentences:—
1. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow.
2. But the fact is, I was napping.
3. Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream, I scanned more narrowly the aspect of the building.
4. Except by what he could see for himself, he could know nothing.
5. Whatever he looks upon discloses a second sense.
6. It will not be pretended that a success in either of these kinds is quite coincident with what is best and inmost in his mind.
7. The reply of Socrates, to him who asked whether he should choose a wife, still remains reasonable, that, whether he should choose one or not, he would repent it.
8. What history it had, how it changed from shape to shape, no man will ever know.
9. Such a man is what we call an original man.
10. Our current hypothesis about Mohammed, that he was a scheming impostor, a falsehood incarnate, that his religion is a mere mass of quackery and fatuity, begins really to be no longer tenable to any one.
Adjective Clauses.
375. As the office of an adjective is to modify, the only use of an adjective clause is to limit or describe some noun, or equivalent of a noun: consequently the adjective may modify any noun, or equivalent of a noun, in the sentence.
The adjective clause may be introduced by the relative pronouns who, which, that, but, as; sometimes by the conjunctions when, where, whither, whence, wherein, whereby, etc.
Frequently there is no connecting word, a relative pronoun being understood.
Examples of adjective clauses.
376. Adjective clauses may modify—
(1) The subject: "The themes it offers for contemplation are too vast for their capacities;" "Those who see the Englishman only in town, are apt to form an unfavorable opinion of his social character."
(2) The object: "From this piazza Ichabod entered the hall, which formed the center of the mansion."
(3) The complement: "The animal he bestrode was a broken-down plow-horse, that had outlived almost everything but his usefulness;" "It was such an apparition as is seldom to be met with in broad daylight."
(4) Other words: "He rode with short stirrups, which brought his knees nearly up to the pommel of the saddle;" "No whit anticipating the oblivion which awaited their names and feats, the champions advanced through the lists;" "Charity covereth a multitude of sins, in another sense than that in which it is said to do so in Scripture."
Exercise.
Pick out the adjective clauses, and tell what each one modifies; i.e., whether subject, object, etc.
1. There were passages that reminded me perhaps too much of Massillon.
2. I walked home with Calhoun, who said that the principles which I had avowed were just and noble.
3. Other men are lenses through which we read our own minds.
4. In one of those celestial days when heaven and earth meet and adorn each other, it seems a pity that we can only spend it once.
5. One of the maidens presented a silver cup, containing a rich mixture of wine and spice, which Rowena tasted.
6. No man is reason or illumination, or that essence we were looking for.
7. In the moment when he ceases to help us as a cause, he begins to help us more as an effect.
8. Socrates took away all ignominy from the place, which could not be a prison whilst he was there.
9. This is perhaps the reason why we so seldom hear ghosts except in our long-established Dutch settlements.
10. From the moment you lose sight of the land you have left, all is vacancy.
11. Nature waited tranquilly for the hour to be struck when man should arrive.
Adverbial Clauses.
377. The adverb clause takes the place of an adverb in modifying a verb, a verbal, an adjective, or an adverb. The student has met with many adverb clauses in his study of the subjunctive mood and of subordinate conjunctions; but they require careful study, and will be given in detail, with examples.
378. Adverb clauses are of the following kinds:
(1) TIME: "As we go, the milestones are grave-stones;" "He had gone but a little way before he espied a foul fiend coming;" "When he was come up to Christian, he beheld him with a disdainful countenance."
(2) PLACE: "Wherever the sentiment of right comes in, it takes precedence of everything else;" "He went several times to England, where he does not seem to have attracted any attention."
(3) REASON, or CAUSE: "His English editor lays no stress on his discoveries, since he was too great to care to be original;" "I give you joy that truth is altogether wholesome."
(4) MANNER: "The knowledge of the past is valuable only as it leads us to form just calculations with respect to the future;" "After leaving the whole party under the table, he goes away as if nothing had happened."
(5) DEGREE, or COMPARISON: "They all become wiser than they were;" "The right conclusion is, that we should try, so far as we can, to make up our shortcomings;" "Master Simon was in as chirping a humor as a grasshopper filled with dew [is];" "The broader their education is, the wider is the horizon of their thought." The first clause in the last sentence is dependent, expressing the degree in which the horizon, etc., is wider.
(6) PURPOSE: "Nature took us in hand, shaping our actions, so that we might not be ended untimely by too gross disobedience."
(7) RESULT, or CONSEQUENCE: "He wrote on the scale of the mind itself, so that all things have symmetry in his tablet;" "The window was so far superior to every other in the church, that the vanquished artist killed himself from mortification."
(8) CONDITION: "If we tire of the saints, Shakespeare is our city of refuge;" "Who cares for that, so thou gain aught wider and nobler?" "You can die grandly, and as goddesses would die were goddesses mortal."
(9) CONCESSION, introduced by indefinite relatives, adverbs, and adverbial conjunctions,—whoever, whatever, however, etc.: "But still, however good she may be as a witness, Joanna is better;" "Whatever there may remain of illiberal in discussion, there is always something illiberal in the severer aspects of study."
These mean no matter how good, no matter what remains, etc.
Exercise.
Pick out the adverbial clauses in the following sentences; tell what kind each is, and what it modifies:—
1. As I was clearing away the weeds from this epitaph, the little sexton drew me on one side with a mysterious air, and informed me in a low voice that once upon a time, on a dark wintry night, when the wind was unruly, howling and whistling, banging about doors and windows, and twirling weathercocks, so that the living were frightened out of their beds, and even the dead could not sleep quietly in their graves, the ghost of honest Preston was attracted by the well-known call of "waiter," and made its sudden appearance just as the parish clerk was singing a stave from the "mirrie garland of Captain Death."
2. If the children gathered about her, as they sometimes did, Pearl would grow positively terrible in her puny wrath, snatching up stones to fling at them, with shrill, incoherent exclamations, that made her mother tremble because they had so much the sound of a witch's anathemas.
3. The spell of life went forth from her ever-creative spirit, and communicated itself to a thousand objects, as a torch kindles a flame wherever it may be applied.
ANALYZING COMPLEX SENTENCES.
379. These suggestions will be found helpful:—
(1) See that the sentence and all its parts are placed in the natural order of subject, predicate, object, and modifiers.
(2) First take the sentence as a whole; find the principal subject and principal predicate; then treat noun clauses as nouns, adjective clauses as adjectives modifying certain words, and adverb clauses as single modifying adverbs.
(3) Analyze each clause as a simple sentence. For example, in the sentence, "Cannot we conceive that Odin was a reality?" we is the principal subject; cannot conceive is the principal predicate; its object is that Odin was a reality, of which clause Odin is the subject, etc.
380. It is sometimes of great advantage to map out a sentence after analyzing it, so as to picture the parts and their relations. To take a sentence:—
"I cannot help thinking that the fault is in themselves, and that if the church and the cataract were in the habit of giving away their thoughts with that rash generosity which characterizes tourists, they might perhaps say of their visitors, 'Well, if you are those men of whom we have heard so much, we are a little disappointed, to tell the truth.'"
This may be represented as follows:—
I cannot help thinking
____________________
|
_______________________|
|
| (a) THAT THE FAULT IS IN THEMSELVES, AND
|
| (b) [THAT] THEY MIGHT (PERHAPS) SAY OF THEIR VISITORS
| ___________________
| |
| _____________________________|_________________________________
| | |
| | (a) We are (a little) disappointed |
| O| ___________________________ |
O| b| ________________________| |
b| j| M| |
j| e| o| (b) If you are those men |
e| c| d| ___ |
c| t| i| _________________________| |
t| | f| M| |
| | i| o| Of whom we have heard so much. |
| | e| d. |
| \ r\ \ |
| _____________________________________________________|
| M|
| o| (a) If the church and ... that rash generosity
| d| __________
| i| |
| f| _______________________________________________|
| i| |
| e| | (b) Which characterizes tourists.
| r| |
\ \ \
OUTLINE
381. (1) Find the principal clause.
(2) Analyze it according to Sec. 364.
(3) Analyze the dependent clauses according to Sec. 364. This of course includes dependent clauses that depend on other dependent clauses, as seen in the "map" (Sec. 380).
Exercises.
(a) Analyze the following complex sentences:—
1. Take the place and attitude which belong to you.
2. That mood into which a friend brings us is his dominion over us.
3. True art is only possible on the condition that every talent has its apotheosis somewhere.
4. The deep eyes, of a light hazel, were as full of sorrow as of inspiration.
5. She is the only church that has been loyal to the heart and soul of man, that has clung to her faith in the imagination.
6. She has never lost sight of the truth that the product human nature is composed of the sum of flesh and spirit.
7. But now that she has become an establishment, she begins to perceive that she made a blunder in trusting herself to the intellect alone.
8. Before long his talk would wander into all the universe, where it was uncertain what game you would catch, or whether any.
9. The night proved unusually dark, so that the two principals had to tie white handkerchiefs round their elbows in order to descry each other.
10. Whether she would ever awake seemed to depend upon an accident.
11. Here lay two great roads, not so much for travelers that were few, as for armies that were too many by half.
12. It was haunted to that degree by fairies, that the parish priest was obliged to read mass there once a year.
13. More than one military plan was entered upon which she did not approve.
14. As surely as the wolf retires before cities, does the fairy sequester herself from the haunts of the licensed victualer.
15. M. Michelet is anxious to keep us in mind that this bishop was but an agent of the English.
16. Next came a wretched Dominican, that pressed her with an objection, which, if applied to the Bible, would tax every miracle with unsoundness.
17. The reader ought to be reminded that Joanna D'Arc was subject to an unusually unfair trial.
18. Now, had she really testified this willingness on the scaffold, it would have argued nothing at all but the weakness of a genial nature.
19. And those will often pity that weakness most, who would yield to it least.
20. Whether she said the word is uncertain.
21. This is she, the shepherd girl, counselor that had none for herself, whom I choose, bishop, for yours.
22. Had they been better chemists, had we been worse, the mixed result, namely, that, dying for them, the flower should revive for us, could not have been effected.
23. I like that representation they have of the tree.
24. He was what our country people call an old one.
25. He thought not any evil happened to men of such magnitude as false opinion.
26. These things we are forced to say, if we must consider the effort of Plato to dispose of Nature,—which will not be disposed of.
27. He showed one who was afraid to go on foot to Olympia, that it was no more than his daily walk, if continuously extended, would easily reach.
28. What can we see or acquire but what we are?
29. Our eyes are holden that we cannot see things that stare us in the face, until the hour arrives when the mind is ripened.
30. There is good reason why we should prize this liberation.
(b) First analyze, then map out as in Sec. 380, the following complex sentences:—
1. The way to speak and write what shall not go out of fashion, is to speak and write sincerely.
2. The writer who takes his subject from his ear, and not from his heart, should know that he has lost as much as he has gained.
3. "No book," said Bentley, "was ever written down by any but itself."
4. That which we do not believe, we cannot adequately say, though we may repeat the words never so often.
5. We say so because we feel that what we love is not in your will, but above it.
6. It makes no difference how many friends I have, and what content I can find in conversing with each, if there be one to whom I am not equal.
7. In every troop of boys that whoop and run in each yard and square, a new-comer is as well and accurately weighed in the course of a few days, and stamped with his right number, as if he had undergone a formal trial of his strength, speed, and temper.
COMPOUND SENTENCES.
How formed.
382. The compound sentence is a combination of two or more simple or complex sentences. While the complex sentence has only one main clause, the compound has two or more independent clauses making statements, questions, or commands. Hence the definition,—
Definition.
383. A compound sentence is one which contains two or more independent clauses.
This leaves room for any number of subordinate clauses in a compound sentence: the requirement is simply that it have at least two independent clauses.
Examples of compound sentences:—
Examples.
(1) Simple sentences united: "He is a palace of sweet sounds and sights; he dilates; he is twice a man; he walks with arms akimbo; he soliloquizes."
(2) Simple with complex: "The trees of the forest, the waving grass, and the peeping flowers have grown intelligent; and he almost fears to trust them with the secret which they seem to invite."
(3) Complex with complex: "The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried."
384. From this it is evident that nothing new is added to the work of analysis already done.
The same analysis of simple sentences is repeated in (1) and (2) above, and what was done in complex sentences is repeated in (2) and (3).
The division into members will be easier, for the coördinate independent statements are readily taken apart with the subordinate clauses attached, if there are any.
Thus in (1), the semicolons cut apart the independent members, which are simple statements; in (2), the semicolon separates the first, a simple member, from the second, a complex member; in (3), and connects the first and second complex members, and nor the second and third complex members.
Connectives.
385. The coördinate conjunctions and, nor, or but, etc., introduce independent clauses (see Sec. 297).
But the conjunction is often omitted in copulative and adversative clauses, as in Sec. 383 (1). Another example is, "Only the star dazzles; the planet has a faint, moon-like ray" (adversative).
Study the thought.
386. The one point that will give trouble is the variable use of some connectives; as but, for, yet, while (whilst), however, whereas, etc. Some of these are now conjunctions, now adverbs or prepositions; others sometimes coördinate, sometimes subordinate conjunctions.
The student must watch the logical connection of the members of the sentence, and not the form of the connective.
Exercise.
Of the following illustrative sentences, tell which are compound, and which complex:—
1. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost.
2. I no longer wish to meet a good I do not earn, for example, to find a pot of buried gold.
3. Your goodness must have some edge to it—else it is none.
4. Man does not stand in awe of man, nor is his genius admonished to stay at home, but it goes abroad to beg a cup of water of the urns of other men.
5. A man cannot speak but he judges himself.
6. In your metaphysics you have denied personality to the Deity, yet when the devout motions of the soul come, yield to them heart and life.
7. I thought that it was a Sunday morning in May; that it was Easter Sunday, and as yet very early in the morning.
8. We denote the primary wisdom as intuition, whilst all later teachings are tuitions.
9. Whilst the world is thus dual, so is every one of its parts.
10. They measure the esteem of each other by what each has, and not by what each is.
11. For everything you have missed, you have gained something else; and for everything you gain, you lose something.
12. I sometimes seemed to have lived for seventy or one hundred years in one night; nay, I sometimes had feelings representative of a millennium, passed in that time, or, however, of a duration far beyond the limits of experience.
13. However some may think him wanting in zeal, the most fanatical can find no taint of apostasy in any measure of his.
14. In this manner, from a happy yet often pensive child, he grew up to be a mild, quiet, unobtrusive boy, and sun-browned with labor in the fields, but with more intelligence than is seen in many lads from the schools.
OUTLINE FOR ANALYZING COMPOUND SENTENCES.
387. (i) Separate it into its main members. (2) Analyze each complex member as in Sec. 381. (3) Analyze each simple member as in Sec. 364.
Exercise.
Analyze the following compound sentences:—
1. The gain is apparent; the tax is certain.
2. If I feel overshadowed and outdone by great neighbors, I can yet love; I can still receive; and he that loveth maketh his own the grandeur that he loves.
3. Love, and thou shalt be loved.
4. All loss, all pain, is particular; the universe remains to the heart unhurt.
5. Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth.
6. He teaches who gives, and he learns who receives.
7. Whatever he knows and thinks, whatever in his apprehension is worth doing, that let him communicate, or men will never know and honor him aright.
8. Stand aside; give those merits room; let them mount and expand.
9. We see the noble afar off, and they repel us; why should we intrude?
10. We go to Europe, or we pursue persons, or we read books, in the instinctive faith that these will call it out and reveal us to ourselves.
11. A gay and pleasant sound is the whetting of the scythe in the mornings of June, yet what is more lonesome and sad than the sound of a whetstone or mower's rifle when it is too late in the season to make hay?
12. "Strike," says the smith, "the iron is white;" "keep the rake," says the haymaker, "as nigh the scythe as you can, and the cart as nigh the rake."
13. Trust men, and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great, though they make an exception in your favor to all their rules of trade.
14. On the most profitable lie the course of events presently lays a destructive tax; whilst frankness invites frankness, puts the parties on a convenient footing, and makes their business a friendship.
15. The sturdiest offender of your peace and of the neighborhood, if you rip up his claims, is as thin and timid as any; and the peace of society is often kept, because, as children, one is afraid, and the other dares not.
16. They will shuffle and crow, crook and hide, feign to confess here, only that they may brag and conquer there, and not a thought has enriched either party, and not an emotion of bravery, modesty, or hope.
17. The magic they used was the ideal tendencies, which always make the Actual ridiculous; but the tough world had its revenge the moment they put their horses of the sun to plow in its furrow.
18. Come into port greatly, or sail with God the seas.
19. When you have chosen your part, abide by it, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world.
20. Times of heroism are generally times of terror, but the day never shines in which this element may not work.
21. Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and as we pass through them they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue, and each shows only what lies at its focus.
22. We see young men who owe us a new world, so readily and lavishly they promise, but they never acquit the debt; they die young, and dodge the account; or, if they live, they lose themselves in the crowd.
23. So does culture with us; it ends in headache.
24. Do not craze yourself with thinking, but go about your business anywhere.
25. Thus journeys the mighty Ideal before us; it never was known to fall into the rear.
