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.