HERE LIES THE GREAT SHAKESPEARE
The orator begins slowly to read the inscription. When he reaches the name of the great man, he hesitates, turns his attention from the inscription to the monument as a whole, and, without uttering the name “Shakespeare,” passionately addresses the monument thus:
“False marble! Where lies the great Shakespeare? Nothing but sordid dust lies here.”
Having heard the speech, we come to prepare it for the printed page. How shall we punctuate the part of it now under consideration so as to convey the meaning expressed by the speaker in the break made after the word “great”? Mr. De Vinne’s mode (No. 28-2) of printing the language fails to show the grammatical end of the first group of words (the inscription); and, in the absence of such knowledge, the reader will not readily catch the relation of “great” to “false marble.” Mr. Wilson (No. 28) shows the change in two ways: by a change in the style of letters in the first word after the dash, and by beginning this word with a capital letter. The sense of the language clearly shows that the first group of words would have ended, in the absence of the dash, where the dash ends. The change from the style of letters (small capitals) also shows this. As the practice of using no period after a dash in sentences like No. 28 is thoroughly established, the reader learns from the first letter of the next word whether such word begins a new sentence. As printed in Mr. De Vinne’s work, “false,” beginning with a small letter, appears to be a part of what precedes, giving the meaning of “the great, false marble.” As printed in Mr. Wilson’s work, “False” begins a new sentence, and should have the usual space before it; but is it correct?
Mr. Bigelow, apparently seeing the difficulty we are discussing, puts a space after the dash, thus ending the sentence with the dash. This of course requires that “false” begin with a capital letter, the word being the first word in a new sentence.
We believe that if “false” is written with a capital letter, thus making a new sentence, the dash should be followed by the space that is used to separate sentences.
Our conclusions would require that the sentence be written in the following way:
28-3. “Here lies the great”— False marble! where?
Let it be remembered that we are attempting in the above sentence to reproduce on the printed page what a speaker said and how he said it.