NOTES TO RULE XXIII.
NOTE I.—Prepositions must be chosen and employed agreeably to the usage and idiom of the language, so as rightly to express the relations intended. Example of error: "By which we arrive to the last division."—Richard W. Green's Gram., p. vii. Say,—"arrive at." NOTE II.—Those prepositions which are particularly adapted in meaning to two objects, or to more, ought to be confined strictly to the government of such terms only as suit them. Example of error: "What is Person? It is the medium of distinction between the speaker, the object addressed or spoken to, and the object spoken of."—O. B. Peirce's Gram., p. 34. "Between three" is an incongruity; and the text here cited is bad in several other respects.
NOTE III.—An ellipsis or omission of the preposition is inelegant, except where long and general use has sanctioned it, and made the relation sufficiently intelligible. In the following sentence, of is needed: "I will not flatter you, that all I see in you is worthy love."— Shakspeare. The following requires from: "Ridicule is banished France, and is losing ground in England."—Kames, El. of Crit., i, 106.
NOTE IV.—The insertion of a preposition is also inelegant, when the particle is needless, or when it only robs a transitive verb of its proper regimen; as, "The people of England may congratulate to themselves."—DRYDEN: Priestley's Gram., p. 163. "His servants ye are, to whom ye obey."—Rom., vi, 16.
NOTE V.—The preposition and its object should have that position in respect to other words, which will render the sentence the most perspicuous and agreeable. Examples of error: "Gratitude is a forcible and active principle in good and generous minds."—Murray's Key, 8vo, p. 169. Better: "In good and generous minds, gratitude is a forcible and active principle." "By a single stroke, he knows how to reach the heart."— Blair's Rhet., p. 439. Better: "He knows how to reach the heart by a single stroke."