And went abroad into the cold wet fog,
Through the dim camp to Peran-Wisa’s tent.
We notice a tendency to break up the sentence into groups of varying length. This tendency is more or less instinctive; and while there may be some difference of opinion as to the number of groups, yet it must be conceded that there is a definite underlying principle, which admits of no exception. For instance, one might read the fourth line as if it were but one group; another, with virtually the same idea in mind, might divide it into two groups at the word “abroad.” On the other hand, no one would read in this way: “And went abroad into the”—“cold wet fog through”—“the dim camp to Peran-Wisa’s tent.”
Read the following sentences aloud carefully, and it will be noticed that the same principle of grouping obtains:
The star of Napoleon was just rising to its zenith as that of Washington was passing away.
The name and memory of Washington will travel with the Silver Queen of Heaven through sixty degrees of longitude, nor part company with her till she walks in her brightness through the Golden Gate of California, and passes serenely on to hold midnight court with her Australian Stars.
The reading of these illustrations shows that grouping is entirely independent of punctuation. It is true that the spoken group may coincide with the grammatical group, but that is merely an accident. We group as we do, not because of punctuation marks, but for more fundamental and less conventional reasons. The function of the punctuation mark is to assist the reader in getting the author’s thought. The following example will illustrate this:
The slaves who were in the hold of the vessel had been captured in Africa.
It is plain that the clause introduced by “who” is a restrictive one, and implies that there were other slaves on the vessel besides those mentioned. If we now insert commas after “slaves” and “vessel,” the sentence becomes equivalent to, The slaves, and they were all in the hold of the vessel, had been captured in Africa.
Note, again, how the sense would be obscured if the author had omitted the comma after “all” in this extract: