A few daring jests, a brawl, and a fatal stab, make up the life of Marlowe.
Time, money, and friends, were needed to carry on the work.
This rule will appear reasonable if we consider an apparent exception to it. When the last noun sums up all the others, or marks the highest point of a climax, no comma is placed after it.
Freedom, honour, religion was at stake.
If "religion" be regarded as marking the highest point of a climax, the predicate is read with "religion," and with it alone. When so great a thing as religion is said to be at stake, everything else is dropped out of sight, or is held to be included. But write the three names as if they were of equal importance; the comma should then be inserted:
Freedom, honour, and religion, were at stake.
But it is not necessary to use a point in such a sentence as this: "Time and tide wait for no man." For we see without the aid of a point that the predicate is to be read with the two nouns equally.
The principle might be applied also in cases like the following, though few writers carry it so far:
It was the act of a high-spirited, generous, just nation.