CHAPTER XV
THE ADVERBIAL CLAUSE OF CONDITION
Function.—We are seldom able to make unqualified statements, because few facts are universally true. On the contrary, we must carefully hedge in our statements by certain restrictions, and a useful means for doing this is the adverbial clause of condition. For instance, “The knight ever came to the rescue of a woman in danger or distress,” is a sweeping statement, and would instantly be disputed unless we add the conditional clause, “provided she was a lady.”
Such a clause is often so important that writers place it at the beginning of the sentence as if they wished to guard against contradiction or misunderstanding, by putting their readers at once into the proper attitude for comprehending their principal statement.
If we examine a few typical sentences, we shall see how useful is the condition clause in a variety of ways.
1. “If nettles and thistles grow in my cabbage garden, I don’t try to persuade them to grow into cabbages.”—Froude. Here the clause states a condition which is to be regarded as really taking place. The idea of time is also associated with that of condition.
2. “If, in the least particular, one could derange the order of nature,—who would accept the gift of life?”—Emerson. The clause here states an imaginary condition, but at the same time implies what is the real state of the case; namely, that no one can, in the least particular, derange the order of nature.
3. “I might have been a minister myself, for aught I know, if this clergyman had not looked and talked so like an undertaker.”—Holmes. Here the sentence is so framed that the contrary of both clause and principal proposition is implied; namely, this clergyman did look and talk exactly like an undertaker, hence I am not a minister. Is it not wonderful that by means of one set of words we may say two opposite things, and not fail of being understood?
4. “If I was ever weak enough to give anything to a petitioner of whatever nationality, it always rained decayed compatriots of his for a month after.”—Lowell. Here the subordinate thought is put into the form of a clause of condition, but at the same time we understand that we are to find in it the cause of the principal proposition.
5. “Middlingness is always pardonable, so that one does not ask others to take it for superiority.”—George Eliot. The clause is here a saving clause. It states the exception necessary to be made in order that the principal proposition may be accepted as true.
6. “If my friend was not a genius, he was certainly a monomaniac.”—H. James. This sentence does not mean that my friend was a monomaniac provided he was not a genius, but is a brief way of saying,—If you assert that my friend was not a genius, you will then have to admit that he was certainly a monomaniac.
7. “She has met the equinoctials before, if it is the equinoctials that are beginning.”—Black. Here the clause does not state a condition for the principal proposition, but for some thought not expressed,—this, perhaps: and can meet this storm.
In these sentences we have by no means shown all that may be accomplished by the conditional clause. We have only indicated the types of sentences most frequently met with in which this clause occurs.
What the Conditional Clause modifies.—The conditional clause is usually brought into the sentence by the predicate of the principal proposition, and so must be looked upon as an adjunct of that predicate. Sometimes, however, it modifies a gerund, participle, or infinitive. In the sentence;—“She must have a story, well, ill, or indifferently told, so there be life stirring in it, and plenty of good or evil accidents,” the clause modifies the participle told after it has been modified by the adverbs well, ill, and indifferently.
Introductory Word.—1. The subordinating conjunctions if, so, unless (= if not).
2. The phrases on condition that, conditionally that, in case that, provided that, but that, so that. These should be considered as one word.
3. The imperatives say, let, suppose; as, “Suppose you were going to carpet a room, would you use a carpet having representations of flowers upon it?”—Dickens. Here the condition seems to be actual and present, not imaginary.
4. The participles providing, provided, supposing. The first two are especially useful in introducing a restriction.
Sometimes there is no connective, but the subordination and the nature of the clause are indicated by the order of the words, the verb or its auxiliary being placed before the subject; thus, “Had I twenty girls, they should be brought up exactly in this fashion.”—Lamb.
Exercise 16
Dispose of all clauses of condition in the following sentences:
1. If I had my will, every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.—Dickens.
2. Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end.—Mill.
3. Education will not make people happy, unless it is directed into useful channels.—Lord.
4. The hall was open to all who came on condition that the guest should leave his weapons at the door.—Besant.
5. Should a man discover the art of transmuting metals, and present us with a lump of gold as large as an ostrich egg, would it be in human nature to inquire too nicely whether he had stolen the lead?—Lowell.
6. He made very few rules, and in case one was broken in spirit or in letter, the delinquent was set up on a high stool behind a small, long-legged desk, facing the school, and made to read from the bad boy’s scrap book.—Annie Preston.
7. If you would not be known to do a thing, never do it.—Emerson.
8. While you utterly shun slang, whether native or foreign born,—at present, by the way, our popular writers use far less slang than the English,—yet do not shrink from Americanisms, so they be good ones.—Higginson.
9. The Saxon is the man of all others slow to admit the thought of revolution; but let him once admit it, he will carry it through and make it stick—a secret hitherto undiscoverable by other races.—Lowell.
10. Had it been wholly serious, it would not have been wholly French.—Higginson.
11. If he was ambitious, his ambition had no petty aim.—J. R. Green.
12. Talents are absolutely nothing to a man except he have the faculty of work along with them.—Lowell.