“I met, last evening, Mr. James, the artist; his son, a lawyer; Mr. Gay, a friend of my mother’s; Mr. Clarke and Mr. Paul.”
Without proper regard being paid to punctuation, the very essence of good composition is lost; it is of the utmost importance, as clearness, strength, and accuracy depend upon it, in as great a measure as the power of an army depends upon the skill displayed in marshalling and arranging the troops. The separation of one portion of a composition from another; the proper classification and division of the subjects; the precise meaning of every word and sentence; the relation each part bears to previous or following parts; the connection of one portion and separation of others—all depend upon punctuation. Many persons seem to consider it sufficient to put in a period at the end of a long sentence, leaving all the little niceties which a comma, semicolon, or colon would render clear, in a state of the most lamentable obscurity. Others use all the points, but misplace them in a most ludicrous manner. A sentence may be made by the omission or addition of a comma to express a meaning exactly opposite to the one it expressed before the little mark was written or erased. The best mode of studying punctuation is to read over what you write, aloud, and put in the points as you would dwell a longer or shorter time on the words, were you speaking.
We now come to the use of capital letters, a subject next, in importance to punctuation, and one too often neglected, even by writers otherwise careful.
The first word of every piece of writing, whether it be a book, a poem, a story, a letter, a bill, a note, or only a line of directions, must begin with a capital letter.
Quotations, even though they are not immediately preceded by a period, must invariably begin with a capital letter.
Every new sentence, following a period, exclamation mark, or interrogation point, must begin with a capital letter.
Every proper name, whether it be of a person, a place, or an object, must begin with a capital letter. The pronoun I and exclamation O must be always written in capital letters.
Capitals must never, except in the case of proper names or the two letters mentioned in the last paragraph, be written in the middle of a sentence.
A capital letter must never be used in the middle of a word, among the small letters; nor must it be used at the end of a word.
Nothing adds more to the beauty of a letter, or any written composition, than handsomely written capital letters, used in their proper places.