RULE IV.

A Parenthesis coalescing with the Main Passage.

When parentheses or intermediate expressions, that easily coalesce with the construction of the sentences in which they occur, are separable into portions requiring points, dashes may be used instead of the common marks of parenthesis.

EXAMPLES.

1. The whole deportment of a child is delightful. Its smile — always so ready when there is no distress, and so soon recurring when that distress has passed away is like an opening of the sky, showing heaven beyond.

2. The archetypes, the ideal forms of things without, if not, as some philosophers have said, in a metaphysical sense, yet in a moral sense, exist within us.

REMARKS.

a. When a sentence, being assertive, can be read without a point between the parts into which a parenthesis is introduced,

that

is, on the supposition of its being excluded, none will be requisite along with the dashes; as in the first example under the rule, which, if the parenthesis were omitted, would read thus: "Its smile is like an opening of the sky, showing heaven beyond."

b. But when, without the parenthesis, such a sentence would require a comma or any other grammatical mark at the place where the parenthesis occurs, both the dashes must be preceded by that mark, as in the second example.

c. The parenthetical portion, even though incapable of subdivision, is enclosed by dashes, when it contains an echo of what precedes, or is thrown in by way of explanation; as, "It was under the influence of impulse- the impulse of nature on his own poetic spirit that Burns went forth singing in glory and in joy on the mountain-side.”

d. If the parenthesis is expressive of inquiry or emotion, a note of interrogation or of exclamation should be used before the second dash, whatever may be the point, if any, required before the first; as, "How little may it not be?-the most considerate feel the import of a grateful acknowledgment to God!” "In conformity

with a rule of the Trotters, never to flinch from duty,' I stand here, not to make a speech, for who would expect me to make a speech? but to thank you for the honor you have done us, and to give you some reminiscences of the Trotter family."

e. The following passage, which, as requiring a dash before the echoed word "not," belongs to Rule III., p. 182, should, though perhaps it does not contain a strictly parenthetical expression, have the same mark before the conjunction "but," in accordance with the examples under the present rule, in order to show the relation of the first two larger portions of the sentence to the latter: "Luther entered Rome, not in the mood of the scholar or the poet, not to study inscriptions, or muse over the ruins of fallen grandeur, -but with the burning zeal of a devout pilgrim, who hoped to find there a fountain which would slake the deep thirst of his soul.”

f. Though but partially embraced by the rule, the following is a sentence which requires for its elucidation a similar mode of pointing: "The finest displays of power, such as those which delineate Prometheus blessing mankind, and defying the thunder of Jove, even when fastened to the barren rock, with the vulture tugging at his heart, what are they but the principles which have animated men who have struck for freedom; braving the dungeon, the stake, and the scaffold, in their enthusiasm for liberty, and their determination to emancipate themselves and their fellow-creatures?" Here, it will be seen, the nominative case is interrupted by the parenthesis, and then repeated in an interrogative form. (See Rule II., p. 178.) To exhibit this interruption and change, made with a view of imparting intensity to the language, the parenthetical dashes, preceded each by a comma, are used.

g. Where one parenthetical clause is contained within another, both of which should be distinctly perceived, that which is less connected in construction, whatever the order, may be enclosed by the usual marks, and the other set off by dashes, as in the following lines:

"Sir Smug," he cries for lowest at the board
Just made fifth chaplain of his patron lord;
His shoulders witnessing, by many a shrug,
How much his feelings suffered sat Sir Smug),

"Your office is to winnow false from true:

Come, prophet, drink, and tell us what think you.”

h. For the merely grammatical mode of pointing parentheses and parenthetical expressions, see pp. 64, 65; 167–170.

ORAL EXERCISE.

Show how these sentences exemplify the Rule and the Remarks (pp. 186-7):~

There are times they only can understand who have known them when passion is dumb, and purest love maintains her whole dominion.

The true test of a great man — that, at least, which must secure his place among the highest order of great men — is his having been in advance of his age.

In youth that is to say, somewhere between the period of childhood and manhood there is commonly a striking development of

sensibility and imagination.

To Andersen -a young man of vivid fancy, fine senses, and cordial sympathies, who had been reared in the blessed air of renunciation every thing in Italy was a delight.

The magnificent creations of Southey's poetry-piled up, like clouds at sunset, in the calm serenity of his capacious intellect have always been duly appreciated by poetical students and critical readers; but by the public at large they are neglected.

In pure description, such as is not warmed by passion, or deepened by philosophical reflection, Shelley is a great master.

In the heathen world, where mankind had no divine revelation, but followed the impulse of nature alone, -religion was often the basis of civil government.

Demosthenes, Julius Cæsar, Henry the Fourth of France, Lord Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton, Franklin, Washington, Napoleon, — different as they were in their intellectual and moral qualities,· were all renowned as hard workers.

When we look up to the first rank of genius, to Socrates and Plato and Pythagoras, to Paul and Luther, to Bacon and Leibnitz and Newton, we find they are men who bow before the infinite sanctities which their souls discern.

There was a deep wisdom in the governing maxim of the old Catholic church, — though often, it must be confessed, meagrely understood and falsely applied, that truth is to be found in a central point equally remote from divergent errors.

The poetic temperament that had led Channing to the beach in Newport, and to the willow walk in Cambridge, thrilling his soul with the sense of beauty, with yearnings to be free from imperfection, and visions of good too great for earth, was working strongly in him.

Truth, courage, and justice those lion virtues that stand round the throne of national greatness - shape their blunt manners and their downright speech.

Religion - who can doubt it? - is the noblest of themes for the exercise of intellect.

I wished

oh! why should I not have wished?

that all my fellow-men possessed the blessings of a benign civilization and a pure form of Christianity.

And the ear,

that gathers unto its hidden chambers all music

and gladness, — would you give it for a kingdom?

As thus I mused amidst the various train
Of toil-worn wanderers of the perilous main,
Two sailors well I marked them (as the beam
Of parting day yet lingered on the stream,
And the sun sunk behind the shady reach)-
Hastened with tottering footsteps to the beach.

EXERCISE TO BE WRITTEN.

Insert in the following sentences the parenthetical dashes, with the points accompanying them when required:

In our dwellings and in concert-rooms, ay, and in opera-houses so the theme be pure and great there is preaching as surely as within church-walls. (Remark b.)

Either there is a resemblance and analogy but how imperfect between the attributes of the Divinity and our conceptions of them, or we cannot have any conceptions at all. (Remark d.)

It is no exaggeration to say, that Milton alone has surpassed if even he has surpassed some of the noble sonnets of Wordsworth, dedicated to liberty and inspired by patriotism. (Remark c.)

It is when man is in his truest moods and these come never oftener than in his sorrows and self-communings that he finds himself most in harmony with nature, and most rejoices in her kindly and wholesome influence. (Remark b.)

When we read the maxims of La Rochefoucault which, false as they would be if they had been intended to give us a faithful universal picture of the moral nature of man, were unfortunately too faithful a delineation of the passions and principles that imme diately surrounded their author, and met his daily view in the splendid scenes of vanity and ambitious intrigue to which his obser

vation was confined it is impossible not to feel, that, acute and subtle as they are, many of these maxims must have been only the expression of principles which were floating, without being fixed in words, in the minds of many of his fellow-courtiers. (Remark b.)

The gods of the Greeks those graceful forms which Homer drew in verse, and Phidias realized in marble were scarcely more irrational than the objects to which, in the name of Christianity, many have paid their homage. (Remark a.)

When a people shall learn that its greatest benefactors and most important members are men devoted to the liberal instruction of all its classes to the work of raising to life its buried intellect it will have opened to itself the path of true glory. (Remark c.)

The contest between Christianity and the heathenish philosophy between the old polytheism and the new belief, a poetical mythology and a religion of morality is the most remarkable intellectual contest which has ever been exhibited and determined among the human race. (Remark a.)

Christianity which, as a reform lastingly affecting all the social relations of men, yet remains to be philosophically estimated (our limits forbid our entering upon that tempting field of inquiry) had sown the seeds whose fruit might supplement the pre-existing system. (Remark g.)

With regard to the powers of speech those powers which the very second year of our existence generally calls into action, the exercise of which goes on at our sports, our studies, our walks, our very meals, and which is never long suspended, except at the hour of refreshing sleep how few surpass their fellow-creatures of common information and moderate attainments! (Remark b.)

If we were to imagine present together, not a single small group only of those whom their virtues or talents had rendered eminent in a single nation, but all the sages and patriots of every country and period, without one of the frail and guilty contemporaries that mingled with them when they lived on earth; if we were to imagine them collected together, not on an earth of occasional sunshine and alternate tempests like that which we inhabit, but in some still fairer world, in which the only variety of the seasons consisted in a change of beauties and delights a world in which the faculties and virtues that were originally so admirable continued still their glorious and immortal progress does it seem possible that the contemplation of such a scene, so nobly inhabited, should not be delightful to him who might be transported into it? (Remark b.)