2. Write twenty sentences, each containing a conditional clause. Tell whether each condition refers to present, past, or future time. Which of them are contrary to fact?
EXERCISE 51
([§§ 428–429], [p. 173])
1. Point out the clauses of comparison and explain such forms of verbs or pronouns as may require comment.
1. Dull as a flower without the sun, he sat down upon a stone. 2. He sighed as if he would break his heart. 3. The modern steamship advances upon a still and overshadowed sea with a pulsating tremor of her frame, an occasional clang in her depths, as if she had an iron heart in her iron body.—Conrad. 4. It would have been as difficult, however, to follow up the stream of Donatello’s ancestry to its dim source, as travellers have found it to reach the mysterious fountains of the Nile. 5. I will become as liberal as you. 6. The triumph was as destructive to the victorious as to the vanquished. 7. The public conduct of Milton must be approved or condemned, according as the resistance of the people to Charles the First shall appear to be justifiable or criminal. 8. There was no one in all Clavering who read so many novels as Madame Fribsby. 9. No kind of power is more formidable than the power of making men ridiculous.—Macaulay.
10. The leader of the orchestra was sawing away at his violin as savagely as if he were calling on his company to rush up and seize a battery of guns.—Black. 11. He shouts as if he were trying his voice against a northwest gale of wind. 12. The playground seemed smaller than when I used to sport about it. 13. The blood in me ran cold, and I drew in my breath as if I had been struck. 14. There are few things more formidable than the unwonted anger of a good-natured man.—Miller. 15. Nor was Lochiel less distinguished by intellectual than by bodily vigor. 16. He showed less wisdom than virtue. 17. He was as courageous an animal as ever scoured the woods. 18. As fierce a beak and talon as ever struck—as strong a wing as ever beat, belonged to Swift.—Thackeray.
19. Homer’s description of war had as much truth as poetry requires.—Macaulay. 20. Of all the objects I have ever seen, there is none which affects my imagination so much as the sea.—Addison. 21. “Somebody must go,” murmured Mrs. Heathcliff, more kindly than I expected. 22. We do not so often disappoint others as ourselves.—Johnson. 23. The battle raged as fiercely on the lake as on the land. 24. The young man looked down on me from the corner of his eyes, for all the world as if there were some mortal feud unavenged between us.—E. Brontë.
2. Write ten sentences containing as if with a subjunctive.
3. Insert personal pronouns of the first or third person.
- 1. You are much stronger than ——.
- 2. Your anger hurts yourself more than it hurts ——.
- 3. You are not so studious as ——.
- 4. He was quite as much to blame as ——.
- 5. I blame myself rather than ——.
- 6. You should rather blame yourself than ——.
- 7. How much older are you than ——?
- 8. Is Jack more ambitious than ——?
- 9. Do you wish to please yourself more than ——?
- 10. Your conduct was less censurable than ——.
EXERCISE 52
([§§ 430–436], [pp. 173–176])
1. Change the direct statements to indirect discourse, prefixing He said. Thus,—
- Supper was announced shortly after my arrival.
- He said that supper was announced shortly after his arrival.