II. A Contingent Declaration or Question.
220. This really amounts to the conclusion, or principal clause, in a sentence, of which the condition is omitted.
Our chosen specimen of the hero as literary man [if we were to choose one] would be this Goethe.—Carlyle.
I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care
Which I have borne and yet must bear.
—Shelley.
Most excellent stranger, as you come to the lakes simply to see their loveliness, might it not be as well to ask after the most beautiful road, rather than the shortest?—De Quincey.
Subjunctive in Dependent Clauses.
I. Condition or Supposition.
221. The most common way of representing the action or being as merely thought of, is by putting it into the form of a supposition or condition; as,—
Now, if the fire of electricity and that of lightning be the same, this pasteboard and these scales may represent electrified clouds.—Franklin.
Here no assertion is made that the two things are the same; but, if the reader merely conceives them for the moment to be the same, the writer can make the statement following. Again,—
If it be Sunday [supposing it to be Sunday], the peasants sit on the church steps and con their psalm books.—Longfellow.