some narrow and limited good, would become less by distribution: it is to wish, and to wish ardently, that all partook of the blessing. Selfishness is the poison of a true devotion: love is its only fitting instrument. Birth and death have an indissoluble correlation: they presuppose each other. It is unworthy of one great people to think falsely of another: it is unjust, and therefore unworthy. The passionate are like men standing on their heads: they see all things the wrong way. - Pride is increased by ignorance: those assume the most who know the least. Do not despise human life: it is the gift of God. He who receives a good turn should never forget it: he who does one should never remember it. All reasoning is retrospect: it consists in the application of facts and principles previously known. Real goodness does not attach itself merely to life: it points to another world. Laziness grows on people: it begins in cobwebs, and ends in iron chains. The prodigal robs his heir: the miser robs himself. Nothing is denied to well-directed labor: nothing is ever to be attained without it. The silence of nature is more impressive, would we understand it, than any speech could be: it expresses what no speech can utter. Good temper is like a sunny day: it sheds a brightness over every thing. Insist on yourself: never imitate. Satire should not be like a saw, but a sword: it should cut, and not mangle. The philosophies of antiquity addressed themselves to the intellect: the simple words of Jesus lay hold of the heart. The actions of men are like the index of a book: they point out what is most remarkable in them. Character is like stock in trade: the more of it a man possesses, the greater his facilities for making additions to it. Men are often warned against old prejudices: I would rather warn them against new conceits. The greatness of a gift cannot be determined by its absolute amount: it can be truly ascertained only by a moral standard. Music resembles poetry: in each Are numerous graces which no methods teach, And which a master-hand alone can reach. EXERCISE TO BE WRITTEN. Let colons be inserted between the clauses of these sentences, in accordance with the Rule or the Remarks (pp. 130–31): For the training of goodness, the ancient reliance was on the right discipline of habit and affection the modern is rather on illumination of understanding. But no the Union cannot be dissolved its fortunes are too brilliant to be marred; its destinies, too powerful to be resisted. (Rule, and Remarks d, b.) There is a true eloquence, which you cannot too much honor it calls into vigorous exercise both the understanding and the heart of the hearer. As the pupil is often obliged to bend all his faculties to the task before him, and tears sometimes fall on the page he is studying; so it is in the school of God's providence there are hard lessons in it. This is certain nothing can be done without a recurrence, before every thing else, to strict justice in all the departments of human intercourse. Strive to be a simple, honest, faithful man whatever hidden talent you possess will then come forth in its genuineness, and exert all its power. Proceed I am all attention. Are these to be conquered by all Europe united? No, sir no united nation can be, that has the spirit to resolve not to be conquered. (Remark d.) The prophet gives the incentives to action the philosopher supplies matter for reflection. One recurs to the heart and the conscience as his medium of influence the other addresses himself to pure intellect. It is with narrow-souled people as with narrow-necked bottles the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring it out. A little praise is good for a shy temper it teaches it to rely on the kindness of others. As the fire-fly only shines when on the wing, so it is with the human mind when at rest, it darkens. Cotemporaries appreciate the man, rather than his merit posterity will regard the merit, rather than the man. I care not, Fortune, what you me deny Through which Aurora shows her brightening face. RULE II. Conjoined Members of Sentences. When a sentence consists of two members which are united by a conjunction or an adverb, and either of them is divisible into clauses separated by semicolons, a colon should be used before the connecting word. EXAMPLES. 1. As we perceive the shadow to have moved along the dial, but did not see it moving; and it appears that the grass has grown, though nobody ever saw it grow: so the advances we make in knowledge, as they consist of such minute steps, are perceivable only by the distance. 2. Without the capacity of suffering, we might have been what the world, in its common language, terms happy; the passive subjects of a series of agreeable sensations: but we could not have had the delights of conscience; we could not have felt what it is to be magnanimous, to have the toil and the combat and the victory. REMARKS. a. These sentences are obviously divisible each into two portions. But, as they are susceptible of being subdivided into smaller parts, some of which should be separated by the semicolon, according to the rule on page 116; so, by reason of the principle that a remoter connection requires a point indicating a greater separation, the colon is introduced between the members; namely, before the connecting words "so" and "but." b. In a long sentence, crowded with distinct clauses, of which several are united by conjunctions, it is better to insert a period than a colon between the two members, or largest portions; as in the following passage from Sir Humphrey Davy: "I envy no quality of mind or intellect in others, be it genius, power, wit, or fancy; but, if I could choose what would be most delightful, and I believe most useful, to me, I should prefer a firm religious belief to every other blessing. For it makes life a discipline of goodness; creates new hopes when all earthly hopes vanish; and throws over the decay, the destruction, of existence, the most gorgeous of all lights; awakens life even in death, and from corruption and decay calls up beauty and divinity; makes an instrument of fortune, and shame the ladder of ascent to Paradise; and, far above all combinations of earthly hopes, calls up the most delightful visions of palms and amaranths, the gardens of the blest, the security of everlasting joys, where the sensualist and the sceptic view only gloom, decay, annihilation, and despair." c. The mode of punctuation recommended in the last remark is worthy of being adopted in the generality of the long passages, whose parts are joined by connecting or disjunctive words, which sometimes appear in the writings of the present day. But in the compositions of the old English writers, which, with much excellence of matter, are usually characterized more by unwieldiness than refinement of style, sentences often occur, whose members are united either by a relative pronoun, which is sometimes preceded by a preposition, or by an adverb or participle equivalent to the pronoun. In such cases, it is seldom that the members, however lengthened, can be separated by a period, without injuring the texture of the parts. However painful, therefore, it may be to the eye of the reader to fall on a page unrelieved by periods and corresponding breaks, the editor or the printer of a work of that kind should conform his punctuation to the nature of the composition; never deviating from the original by substituting a full point for the semicolon or the colon, unless where the character of the sentiments or the form of expressing them obviously admits of such a separation. Thus, the colon should be preserved between the members, or larger parts, of the following sentences; the first being taken from Dean Swift, and the second from an earlier writer, George Sandys: "I swore and subscribed to these articles with cheerfulness and content, although some of them were not so honorable as I could have wished; which proceeded wholly from the malice of Skyresh Bolgolam, the high admiral: whereupon my chains were immediately unlocked, and I was at full liberty." "The parts I speak of are the most renowned countries and kingdoms: once the seats of most glorious and triumphant empires, the theatres of valor and heroical actions, the soils enriched with all earthly felicities; the places where Nature hath produced her wonderful works; where arts and sciences have been invented and perfected; where wisdom, virtue, policy, and civility have been planted, have flourished; . . . where the Son of God honored the earth with his beautiful steps, wrought the works of our redemption, triumphed over death, and ascended into glory: which countries, once so glorious and famous for their happy estate, are now, through vice and ingratitude, become the most deplored spectacles of extreme misery; the wild beasts of mankind having broken in upon them, and rooted out all civility, and the pride of a stern and barbarous tyrant possessing the thrones of ancient and just dominion." ORAL EXERCISE. Why are colons inserted between the members of these sentences? — Every one must, of course, think his own opinions right; for, if he thought them wrong, they would no longer be his opinions: but there is a wide difference between regarding ourselves as infallible, and being firmly convinced of the truth of our creed. He sunk to repose where the red heaths are blended; How many things are there which a man cannot, with any face or comeliness, say or do himself? A man can scarce allege his own merits with modesty, much less extol them; a man cannot sometimes brook to supplicate or beg; and a number of the like: but all these things are graceful in a friend's mouth, which are blushing in a man's own. When once our labor has begun, the comfort that enables us to endure it is the prospect of its end: for though, in every long work, there are some joyous intervals of self-applause, when the attention is recreated by unexpected facility, and the imagination soothed by incidental excellences not comprised in the first plan; yet the toil with which performance struggles after idea is so irksome and disgusting, and so frequent is the necessity of resting below that perfection which we imagined within our reach, that seldom any man obtains more from his endeavors than a painful conviction of his defects, and a continual resuscitation of desires which he feels himself unable to gratify. Patriots have toiled, and in their country's cause |