1. Little tasks make large return. 2. We must now return to the fortress of Tillietudlem and its inhabitants. 3. Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty. 4. The sunshine might now be seen stealing down the front of the opposite house. 5. He sat apart from them all, and looked at them with a melancholy, haughty countenance; while the rest hallooed and sang and laughed, and the room rang. 6. You cannot relieve me, but you may add to the torments I suffer. 7. One gains nothing by attempting to shut out the sprites of the weather. They come in at the keyhole; they peer through the dripping panes; they insinuate themselves through the crevices of the casement, or plump themselves down chimney astride of the raindrops.—Whittier. 8. A large lamp threw a strong mass of light upon the group. 9. The baron pardoned the young couple on the spot. 10. Every now and then he would turn his head slowly round.
11. The river sleeps along its course and dreams of the sky and of the clustering foliage. 12. A severe gale compelled him to seek shelter. 13. Miss Betsy Barker dried her eyes and thanked the Captain heartily. 14. Pray you, look not sad. 15. I am! yet what I am who cares, or knows?—Clare. 16. After all, it is a glorious pastime to find oneself in a real gale of wind, in a big ship, with not a rock to run against within a thousand miles.—Kingsley. 17. We will talk over all this another time. 18. What is progress? Movement. But what if it be movement in the wrong direction?—Disraeli. 19. They say you are a melancholy fellow. 20. The valiant Clifford is no more. 21. The wreck had evidently drifted about for many months; clusters of shellfish had fastened about it, and long seaweed flaunted at its sides.—Irving. 22. Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle as years of matrimony rolled on.
2. Frame twenty sentences, each containing a verb-phrase. Use the auxiliaries mentioned in [§ 210]. Let some of the sentences be interrogative.
3. Make a list of twenty verbs that are transitive in one sense, intransitive in another ([§ 212]). Use these verbs in sentences.
4. Illustrate the absolute use of transitive verbs by framing ten sentences ([§ 213]).
5. Make a list of six copulative verbs ([§ 214]). Use them in sentences. Frame sentences in which the same verbs are not copulative ([§ 215]).
6. Use the copula ([§ 214]) in twenty sentences, several of which shall illustrate its use in verb-phrases.
EXERCISE 29
([§§ 217–225], [pp. 94–99])
1. Write ten sentences in each of which a weak (or regular) verb is used in the past tense; ten, in each of which a strong (or irregular) verb is used in the past tense.
2. Construct sentences in which the past tense of each of the following verbs is used: drink, lie, sow, get, wake, dwell, sing, pay, bid, light, bereave, build, ride, hang, swim, lay, split, shrink, slay, wring, weave, thrive, spin, tread, shake, burst, slink, dive, flee, fly, swing, wet, fling, kneel, let, chide.
3. Point out all the verbs (except the copula and auxiliaries) in Exercise 28, 1, and conjugate them in the present and the past tense. Tell which are weak (regular) and which are strong (irregular). Account for the person and number.