“In the midst of this Babylon I found myself a rallying point; every one was anxious to be kind and helpful to the stranger. This was not merely from the natural hospitality of mountain people, nor even from the surprise with which I was regarded as a man living of his own free will in Le Monastier, when he might just as well have lived anywhere else in this big world.”
It is evident that the pronominal adjective this, which is subject in the second sentence, stands for the second proposition in the preceding sentence. How easily might the following sentence have been made,—“It was not merely from the natural hospitality of mountain people that every one was anxious to be kind and helpful to the stranger.”
This type of sentence must be carefully distinguished from one given in the lesson on adjective clauses; for example, “It is the universal nature which gives worth to particular men and things.”—Emerson.
2. Object of a verb,—“It is hard to believe that we shall get any good from exercise proportionate to the sacrifice of time.”—Hamerton. This is the commonest use of the noun clause. Many of the verbs that take clauses for objects denote action of the senses, the mind, or the emotions,—as feel, see, hear; believe, think, know; desire, hope, fear. The clause is very useful after such verbs, for instance, after see; for besides seeing objects we see those objects performing actions or existing in certain states, and often the only way to tell this is by means of the noun clause. Often, too, it would be impossible to particularize what we believe, or think, or hope, or imagine, or dream, without the aid of a noun clause.
When verbs that take a direct and an indirect object are changed to the passive form in such a way that the indirect object becomes subject, we find the direct object remaining after the passive verb.
Active.—“He told me that the tide was rising.”
Passive.—“I was told that the tide was rising.”
In the second sentence the clause is object of the verb was told.
3. Objective complement.—“Understanding, that is, equilibrium of mind, intellectual good digestion,—this with unclogged biliary ducts, makes the Saxon mentally and physically what we call a very fixed fact.”—Lowell. Here the clause helps to complete the verb makes and at the same time tells us something about the direct object Saxon.
4. Object of a preposition.—“How utterly powerless are our senses to take any measure or impression of the actual grandeur of what we see.”—King. A noun clause so used is not always at first sight easily distinguished from an adjective clause whose first word is a preposition, but there are several points of difference. In the adjective clause the preposition is a necessary part of the clause, governing some word in the objective case, and its position may be shifted to the end of the clause. The noun clause used as object of a preposition is generally introduced by the word what, which does not introduce adjective clauses.