- "Ah! what avails * * * * * * * * *
All that art, fortune, enterprise, can bring,
If envy, scorn, remorse, or pride, the bosom wring?"—Id..- "Women are soft, mild, pitiful, and flexible;
Thou, stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless."—Shak.- "She plans, provides, expatiates, triumphs there."—Young.
- ——————————————"So eagerly the Fiend
O'er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,
With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way,
And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies."—Milton.
RULE IV.—ONLY TWO WORDS.
When only two words or terms are connected by a conjunction, they should not be separated by the comma; as, "It is a stupid and barbarous way to extend dominion by arms; for true power is to be got by arts and industry"—Spectator, No. 2.
- "Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul."—Goldsmith.
EXCEPTION I.—TWO WORDS WITH ADJUNCTS.
When the two words connected have several adjuncts, or when one of them has an adjunct that relates not to both, the comma is inserted; as, "I shall spare no pains to make their instruction agreeable, and their diversion useful."—Spectator, No. 10. "Who is applied to persons, or things personified."—Bullions.
"With listless eyes the dotard views the store,
He views, and wonders that they please no more."—Johnson.
EXCEPTION II.—TWO TERMS CONTRASTED.
When two connected words or phrases are contrasted, or emphatically distinguished, the comma is inserted; as, "The vain are easily obliged, and easily disobliged."—Kames.
- "Liberal, not lavish, is kind Nature's hand."—Beattie.
- "'Tis certain he could write, and cipher too."—Goldsmith.
EXCEPTION III.—ALTERNATIVE OF WORDS.
When there is merely an alternative of names, or an explanatory change of terms, the comma is usually inserted; as, "We saw a large opening, or inlet."—W. Allen. "Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles?"—Cor., ix, 5.
EXCEPTION IV.—CONJUNCTION UNDERSTOOD.
When the conjunction is understood, the comma is inserted; and, if two separated words or terms refer alike to a third term, the second requires a second comma: as, "Reason, virtue, answer one great aim."—L. Murray, Gram., p. 269.
- "To him the church, the realm, their pow'rs consign."—Johnson.
"She thought the isle that gave her birth.
The sweetest, wildest land on earth."—Hogg.
RULE V.—WORDS IN PAIRS.
When successive words are joined in pairs by conjunctions, they should be separated in pairs by the comma; as, "Interest and ambition, honour and shame, friendship and enmity, gratitude and revenge, are the prime movers in public transactions."—W. Allen. "But, whether ingenious or dull, learned or ignorant, clownish or polite, every innocent man, without exception, has as good a right to liberty as to life."—Beattie's Moral Science, p. 313.
"Then say how hope and fear, desire and hate,
O'erspread with snares the crowded maze of fate."—Dr. Johnson.
RULE VI.—WORDS PUT ABSOLUTE.
Nouns or pronouns put absolute, should, with their adjuncts, be set off by the comma; as, "The prince, his father being dead, succeeded."—"This done, we parted."—"Zaccheus, make haste and come down."—"His proctorship in Sicily, what did it produce?"—Cicero.
"Wing'd with his fears, on foot he strove to fly,
His steeds too distant, and the foe too nigh"
—Pope, Iliad, xi, 440.
