REFLEXIVE OR COMPOUND PERSONAL PRONOUNS.

Composed of the personal pronouns with -self, -selves.

94. The REFLEXIVE PRONOUNS, or COMPOUND PERSONAL, as they are also called, are formed from the personal pronouns by adding the word self, and its plural selves.

They are myself, (ourself), ourselves, yourself, (thyself), yourselves, himself, herself, itself, themselves.

Of the two forms in parentheses, the second is the old form of the second person, used in poetry.

Ourself is used to follow the word we when this represents a single person, especially in the speech of rulers; as,—

Methinks he seems no better than a girl;
As girls were once, as we ourself have been.
—Tennyson.

Origin of these reflexives.

95. The question might arise, Why are himself and themselves not hisself and theirselves, as in vulgar English, after the analogy of myself, ourselves, etc.?

The history of these words shows they are made up of the dative-objective forms, not the possessive forms, with self. In Middle English the forms meself, theself, were changed into the possessive myself, thyself, and the others were formed by analogy with these. Himself and themselves are the only ones retaining a distinct objective form.

In the forms yourself and yourselves we have the possessive your marked as singular as well as plural.

Use of the reflexives.

96. There are three uses of reflexive pronouns:—

(1) As object of a verb or preposition, and referring to the same person or thing as the subject; as in these sentences from Emerson:—

He who offers himself a candidate for that covenant comes up like an Olympian.

I should hate myself if then I made my other friends my asylum.

We fill ourselves with ancient learning.

What do we know of nature or of ourselves?

(2) To emphasize a noun or pronoun; for example,—

The great globe itself ... shall dissolve.—Shakespeare.

Threats to all;
To you yourself, to us, to every one.
—Id.

Who would not sing for Lycidas! he knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
—Milton.

NOTE.—In such sentences the pronoun is sometimes omitted, and the reflexive modifies the pronoun understood; for example,—

Only itself can inspire whom it will.—Emerson.

My hands are full of blossoms plucked before, Held dead within them till myself shall die.—E. B. Browning.

As if it were thyself that's here, I shrink with pain.—Wordsworth.

(3) As the precise equivalent of a personal pronoun; as,—

Lord Altamont designed to take his son and myself.—De Quincey.

Victories that neither myself nor my cause always deserved.—B. Franklin.

For what else have our forefathers and ourselves been taxed?—Landor.

Years ago, Arcturus and myself met a gentleman from China who knew the language.—Thackeray.

Exercises on Personal Pronouns.

(a) Bring up sentences containing ten personal pronouns, some each of masculine, feminine, and neuter.

(b) Bring up sentences containing five personal pronouns in the possessive, some of them being double possessives.

Come and trip it as we go,
On the light fantastic toe.

2. Infancy conforms to nobody; all conform to it.

3. It is an ill wind that blows nobody good.

4. Courage, father, fight it out.

5. And it grew wondrous cold.

6. To know what is best to do, and how to do it, is wisdom.

7. If any phenomenon remains brute and dark, it is because the corresponding faculty in the observer is not yet active.

8. But if a man do not speak from within the veil, where the word is one with that it tells of, let him lowly confess it.

9. It behooved him to keep on good terms with his pupils.

10. Biscuit is about the best thing I know; but it is the soonest spoiled; and one would like to hear counsel on one point, why it is that a touch of water utterly ruins it.