CHAPTER III
AIRS AND GRACES
Certain types of humour—Elegant variation—Inversion—Archaism—Metaphor—Repetition—Miscellaneous.
Certain Types of Humour
Some of the more obvious devices of humorous writers, being fatally easy to imitate, tend to outlive their natural term, and to become a part of the injudicious novice’s stock-in-trade. Olfactory organ, once no doubt an agreeable substitute for ‘nose’, has ceased to be legal tender in literature, and is felt to mark a low level in conversation. No amount of classical authority can redeem a phrase that has once reached this stage. The warmest of George Eliot’s admirers, called upon to swallow some tough morsel of polysyllabic humour in a twentieth-century novel, will refuse to be comforted with parallel passages from Adam Bede. Loyalty may smother the ejaculation that ‘George Eliot knew no better’: it is none the less clear to him that we know better now. A few well-worn types are illustrated below.
a. Polysyllabic humour.
He was a boy whom Mrs. Hackit had pronounced stocky (a word that etymologically, in all probability, conveys some allusion to an instrument of punishment for the refractory).—Eliot.
Tommy was a saucy boy, impervious to all impressions of reverence, and excessively addicted to humming-tops and marbles, with which recreative resources he was in the habit of immoderately distending the pockets of his corduroys.—Eliot.
No one save an individual not in a condition to distinguish a hawk from a handsaw....—Times.
And an observer of Miss Tox’s proceedings might have inferred so much without declaratory confirmation.—Dickens.
But it had its little inconveniences at other times, among which may be enumerated the occasional appearance of the river in the drawing-room, and the contemporaneous disappearance of the lawn and shrubbery.—Dickens.
They might be better employed in composing their quarrels and preparing a policy than in following the rather lugubrious occupations indicated by Mr. Asquith.—Times.
Or perhaps, from a presentiment of calves’ brains, you refrain from any lacteal addition, and rasp your tongue with unmitigated bohea.—Eliot.
The rooks were cawing with many-voiced monotony, apparently—by a remarkable approximation to human intelligence—finding great conversational resources in the change of weather.—Eliot.
I had been terribly shaken by my fall, and had subsequently, owing to the incision of the surgeon’s lancet, been deprived of much of the vital fluid.—Borrow.
An elderly man stood near me, and a still more elderly female was holding a phial of very pungent salts to my olfactory organ.—Borrow.
The minister, honest man, was getting on his boots in the kitchen to see us home.... Well, this preparation ministerial being finished, we stepped briskly out.—Crockett.
We have ourselves been reminded of the deficiencies of our femoral habiliments, and exhorted upon that score to fit ourselves more beseemingly.—Scott.
b. Playful repetition.
When she had banged out the tune slowly, she began a different manner of ‘Gettin’ up Stairs’, and did so with a fury and swiftness quite incredible. She spun up stairs; she whirled up stairs; she galloped up stairs; she rattled up stairs.... Then Miss Wirt played the ‘Gettin’ up Stairs’ with the most pathetic and ravishing solemnity.... Miss Wirt’s hands seemed to faint and wail and die in variations: again, and she went up with a savage clang and rush of trumpets, as if Miss Wirt was storming a breach.—Thackeray.
My mind was, to a certain extent, occupied with the marks on the teapot; it is true that the mournful idea strove hard with the marks on the teapot for the mastery in my mind, and at last the painful idea drove the marks of the teapot out.—Borrow.
The pastrycook is hard at work in the funereal room in Brook Street, and the very tall young men are busy looking on. One of the very tall young men already smells of sherry, and his eyes have a tendency to become fixed in his head, and to stare at objects without seeing them. The very tall young man is conscious of this failing in himself; and informs his comrade that it’s his ‘exciseman’. The very tall young man would say excitement, but his speech is hazy.—Dickens.
Busy is Mrs. Miff this morning at the church-door, beating and dusting the altar-cloth, the carpet and the cushions; and much has Mrs. Miff to say about the wedding they are going to have. Mrs. Miff is told that the new furniture and alterations in the house cost full five thousand pound, if they cost a penny; and Mrs. Miff has heard, upon the best authority, that the lady hasn’t got a sixpence wherewithal to bless herself. Mrs. Miff remembers, likewise, as if it had happened yesterday, the first wife’s funeral, and then the christening, and then the other funeral; and Mrs. Miff says, By-the-bye, she’ll soap-and-water that ’ere tablet presently, against the company arrive.—Dickens.
Mr. Dombey was a grave sight, behind the decanters, in a state of dignity; and the East India Director was a forlorn sight, near the unoccupied end of the table, in a state of solitude; and the major was a military sight, relating stories of the Duke of York to six of the seven mild men (the ambitious one was utterly quenched); and the Bank Director was a lowly sight, making a plan of his little attempt at a pinery, with dessert knives, for a group of admirers; and Cousin Feenix was a thoughtful sight, as he smoothed his long wristbands and stealthily adjusted his wig.—Dickens.
The author is very much at his ease in the last example; the novice who should yawn in our faces with such engaging candour would render himself liable to misinterpretation.
c. The well-worn ‘flood-of-tears-and-sedan-chair’ pleasantry.
Phib Cook left her evening wash-tub and appeared at her door in soap-suds, a bonnet-poke, and general dampness.—Eliot.
Sir Charles, of course, rescues her from the clutches of the Italian, and they return together in triumph and a motor-car.—Times.
Miss Nipper ... shook her head and a tin-canister, and began unasked to make the tea.—Dickens.
And for the rest it is not hard to be a stoic in eight-syllable metre and a travelling-carriage.—Lowell.
But what the bare-legged men were doing baffled conjecture and the best glasses.—E. F. Benson.
d. Other worn-out phrases of humorous tendency.
For, tell it not in Gath, the Bishop had arrived on a bicycle.—D. Sladen.
Tell it not in Smith-st., but....—Guernsey Evening Press.
Sleeping the sleep of the just.
The gallant sons of Mars.—Times.
Mr. Mackenzie, with a white hat ... and long brown leather gaiters buttoned upon his nether anatomy.—Lockhart.
Looking for all the world like....—D. Sladen.
Too funny for words.
These two phrases are commonly employed to carry off a humorous description of which the success is doubted. They are equivalents, in light literature, of the encouragement sometimes offered by the story-teller whose joke from Punch has fallen flat: ‘You should have seen the illustration’. Worthy and gallant are similarly used:
To hear the worthy and gallant Major resume his favourite topic is like law-business, or a person who has a suit in Chancery going on.—Hazlitt.
Home.—I would implore God to survey with an eye of mercy their unoffending bairns. Hume.—And would not you be disposed to behold them with an eye of the same materials?—Landor.
Two or three haggard, ragged drawers ran to and fro.... Guided by one of these blinking Ganymedes, they entered....—Scott.
The ancient Hebe who acted as Lord Glenvarloch’s cup-bearer took his part against the intrusion of the still more antiquated Ganymede, and insisted on old Trapbois leaving the room instantly.—Scott.
It may be doubted whether any resemblance or contrast, however striking, can make it worth a modern writer’s while to call waiters Ganymedes, waitresses Hebes, postmen Mercuries, cabmen Automedons or Jehus. In Scott’s time, possibly, these phrases had still an agreeable novelty: they are now so hackneyed as to have fallen into the hands of writers who are not quite certain who Ganymede and Hebe were. Thus, there are persons who evidently think that it is rather complimentary to one’s host than otherwise to call him an Amphitryon; and others who are fond of using the phrase ‘l’Amphitryon où l’on dîne’ altogether without point, apparently under the impression that ‘où l’on dîne’ is an alternative version for the use of the uninitiated (‘Amphitryon’, that is to say, ‘one’s host’).
Japan, says M. Balet, can always borrow money so long as she can provide two things—guarantees and victories. She has guarantees enough and victories galore.—Times.
The English people has insisted on its preference for a married clergy, and Dr. Ingram’s successor may have ‘arrows in the hand of a giant’.—Times.
The inverted commas seem to implore the reader’s acceptance of this very battered ornament. One could forgive it more easily, if there were the slightest occasion for its appearance here.
The only change ever known in his outward man was....—Dickens.
Rob the Grinder, thus transformed as to his outer man....—Dickens.
One hundred parishioners and friends partaking of tea.—Guernsey Advertiser.
But that’s another story.—Kipling.
But that is ‘another story’.—Times.
It was all that Anne could do to keep from braining him with the poker for daring to call her ‘Little One’,—and Anne’s arm is no joke when she hits to hurt. Once John Barnaby—but the tale of John Barnaby can wait.—Crockett.
Nevertheless, some folk like it so, and even now the Captain, when his pipe draws well and his grog is to his liking, says—But there is no use in bringing the Captain into the story.—Crockett.
The notion that Mr. Kipling, left to himself, is not competent to bring out all the latent possibilities of this phrase is a mistaken one, and argues an imperfect acquaintance with his works.
Many heads in England, I find, are shaken doubtfully over the politics, or what are thought to be the politics, of Australia. They—the politics, not the heads—are tangled, they are unsatisfactory in a high degree.—W. H. Fitchett.
Elegant Variation
We include under this head all substitutions of one word for another for the sake of variety, and some miscellaneous examples will be found at the end of the section. But we are chiefly concerned with what may be called pronominal variation, in which the word avoided is either a noun or its obvious pronoun substitute. The use of pronouns is itself a form of variation, designed to avoid ungainly repetition; and we are only going one step further when, instead of either the original noun or the pronoun, we use some new equivalent. ‘Mr. Gladstone’, for instance, having already become ‘he,’ presently appears as ‘that statesman’. Variation of this kind is often necessary in practice; so often, that it should never be admitted except when it is necessary. Many writers of the present day abound in types of variation that are not justified by expediency, and have consequently the air of cheap ornament. It is impossible to lay down hard and fast rules, but two general principles may be suggested: (1) Variation should take place only when there is some awkwardness, such as ambiguity or noticeable monotony, in the word avoided. (2) The substitute should be of a purely pronominal character, a substitute and nothing more; there should be no killing of two birds with one stone. Even when these two requirements are satisfied, the variation is often worse, because more noticeable, than the monotony it is designed to avoid.
The examples in our first group do not offend against (2): how far they offend against (1), and how far they are objectionable on other grounds, we shall consider in detail.
Mr. Wolff, the well-known mining engineer, yesterday paid a visit to the scene of the disaster. The expert gave it as his opinion that no blame attached....
The expert is gratuitous: He would have done quite well.
None the less Mrs. Scott [Sir Walter’s mother] was a motherly comfortable woman, with much tenderness of heart, and a well stored, vivid memory. Sir Walter, writing of her, after his mother’s death, to Lady Louisa Stewart, says....—Hutton.
His mother’s is not only unnecessary, but misleading: there is a difficulty in realizing that her and his mother, so placed, can be meant to refer to the same person.
Mr. J. Hays Hammond, a friend of President Roosevelt, lecturing before the American Political Science Association, quoted a recent utterance of the President of the Japanese House of Peers. That dignitary said: ....—Spectator.
That dignitary said might have been omitted, with the full stop before it.
Mr. Sidney Lee’s study of the Elizabethan Sonnets, the late Mr. Charles Elton’s book on Shakespeare’s Family and Friends, and Professor Bradley’s on Shakespearean Tragedy—a work which may be instructively read with Professor Campbell’s ‘Tragic Drama in Aeschylus, Sophocles and Shakespeare’—remind us that the dramatist still holds his own with the publishers. The last two or three weeks have seen two new editions of him.—Times.
The writer has thoroughly puzzled himself. He cannot call Shakespeare Shakespeare, because there is a Shakespeare just before: he cannot call him he, because six other persons in the sentence have claims upon he: and he ought not to call him the dramatist, because Aeschylus and Sophocles were dramatists too. We know, of course, which dramatist is meant, just as we should have known which he was meant; but the appropriation is awkward in either case. The dramatist is no doubt the best thing under the circumstances; but when matters are brought to such a pass that we can neither call a man by his own name, nor use a pronoun, nor identify him by means of his profession, it is time to remodel the sentence.
If Mr. Chamberlain has been injured by the fact that till now Mr. Balfour has clung to him, Mr. Balfour has been equally injured by the fact that Mr. Chamberlain has persistently locked his arm in that of the Prime Minister.—Spectator.
Elegant variation is the last thing we should expect here. For what is the writer’s principal object? Clearly, to emphasize the idea of reciprocity by the repetition of names, and by their arrangement. Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Balfour: Mr. Balfour, Mr. Chamberlain. It is easy enough, so far: ‘If Mr. Chamberlain has been injured by the persistent attachment of Mr. Balfour, Mr. Balfour has been equally injured by that of Mr. Chamberlain’. But that is not all that is required: there is to be the graphic touch; arm is to be locked in arm. Now comes the difficulty: in whose arm are we to lock Mr. Chamberlain’s? in ‘his’? in ‘his’? in ‘his own’? in ‘Mr. Balfour’s’? in ‘that of the Prime Minister’? As the locking of arms is perhaps after all only an elegant variation for clinging, remodelling seems again to be the best way out of the difficulty. Perhaps our simplified form above might serve.
On Thursday evening last, as a horse and cart were standing at Mr. Brown’s shop, the animal bolted.
‘The horse’.—An unconscious satirist, of tender years but ripe discernment, parsed ‘animal’ in this sentence as a personal pronoun; ‘it replaced the subject of the sentence’. Journalists (it was explained to her) are equipped with many more personal pronouns than ever get into the grammars.
The King yesterday morning made a close inspection of the Cruiser Drake at Portsmouth, and afterwards made a tour of the harbour on board the Admiral’s launch. His Majesty then landed and drove to Southsea, where he inspected the Royal Garrison Artillery at Clarence Barracks. The King returned to London in the course of the afternoon.—Times.
This is, no doubt, a difficult case. The royal pronoun (His Majesty) does not lend itself to repetition: on the other hand, it is felt that hes, if indulged in at all, must be kept a respectful distance apart; hence The King in the third sentence. We can get rid of it by reading ‘... at Clarence Barracks; returning ...’. But of course that solution would not always be possible.
The Emperor received yesterday and to-day General Baron von Beck.... It may therefore be assumed with some confidence that the terms of a feasible solution are maturing themselves in His Majesty’s mind and may form the basis of further negotiations with Hungarian party leaders when the Monarch goes again to Budapest.—Times.
If the Emperor of Austria should disappear from the scene, war, according to this authority, is to be feared, as the Emperor Francis Joseph alone controls....—Times.
There is no excuse either for the Monarch or for the Emperor Francis Joseph. ‘He’ could scarcely have been misinterpreted even in the latter sentence.
Sir Charles Edward Bernard had a long and distinguished career in the Indian Civil Service.... Five years later Sir Charles Bernard was appointed Commissioner of Nagpur.... In 1876 Sir Edward Bernard returned to Nagpur.—Times.
It is natural that Sir Charles Edward Bernard should be introduced to us under his full name; natural, also, that an abbreviation should be chosen for working purposes. But why two abbreviations? If Sir Charles and he are judiciously employed, they will last out to the end of the longest article, without any assistance from Sir Edward.
Among the instances here given, there is scarcely one in which variation might not have been avoided with a little trouble. There are some, indeed, in which it is not gratuitous; and if in these the effect upon the reader were as negative as the writer’s intention, there would be nothing to complain of. But it is not; the artistic concealment of art is invariably wanting. These elephantine shifts distract our attention from the matter in hand; we cannot follow His Majesty’s movements, for wondering what the King will be called next time; will it be plain Edward VII? or will something be done, perhaps, with ‘the Emperor of India’? When the choice lies between monotonous repetition on the one hand and clumsy variation on the other, it may fairly be laid down that of two undesirable alternatives the natural is to be preferred to the artificial.
But variation of this kind is, at the worst, less offensive than that which, in violation of our second principle above, is employed as a medium for the conveyance of sprightly allusion, mild humour or (commonest of all) parenthetic information.
When people looked at his head, they felt he ought to have been a giant, but he was far from rivalling the children of Anak.—H. Caine.
‘Far from it’, in fact.
He never fuddled himself with rum-and-water in his son’s presence, and only talked to his servants in a very reserved and polite manner; and those persons remarked....—Thackeray.
‘What made ye sae late?’ said Mr. Jarvie, as I entered the dining-parlour of that honest gentleman.—Scott.
The parlour was Mr. Jarvie’s.
At the sixth round, there were almost as many fellows shouting out ‘Go it, Figs’, as there were youths exclaiming ‘Go it, Cuff’.—Thackeray.
Great advances in the education of women ... are likely, perhaps, to find more congenial soil in Universities less bound by time-honoured traditions and by social conventions than Oxford or Cambridge. Whatever may be the case by Isis or Cam, ....—Times.
Our representative yesterday ran down to Brighton to interview the Cambridge Captain. The weight-putter and high-jumper received him with his usual cordiality.
This is a favourite newspaper type.
The miscellaneous examples given below (except ‘the former of the last two’) are connected with pronominal variation only so far as they illustrate the same principle of false elegance.
... hardly calculated to impress at this juncture more than upon any former occasion the audience....—Times.
His mother possessed a good development of benevolence, but he owned a better and larger.—C. Brontë.
In the subjoined official record of ‘business done’, transactions marked thus * relate to small bonds, those signalized thus † to small bonds free of stamp and fee, and those distinguished thus + to an exceptional amount at special rates. Stocks and shares marked thus †† have paid no dividend for the last two half-years and upwards.—Times.
The return to marked is humiliating; we would respectfully suggest characterized.
One might be more intelligible in such moods if one wrote in waving lines, and accordingly the question ‘Why do you not ask Alfred Tennyson to your home?’ is written in undulating script.—Spectator.
Eighty-three volumes are required for letter “M,” seventy-seven are demanded by “L,” and seventy-six are perforce conceded to “B”; but the former of the last two....—Westminster Gazette.
I must ask the reader to use the same twofold procedure that I before requested him to employ in considering....—H. Sidgwick.
We have not room to record at length, from the Westminster Gazette, the elegant variety of fortune that attended certain pictures, which (within twenty lines) made, fetched, changed hands for, went for, produced, elicited, drew, fell at, accounted for, realized, and were knocked down for, various sums.
Inversion
Of all the types of inversion used by modern writers, there is perhaps not one that could not be shown to exist in older English. Ordinary modern usage, however, has retained those forms only in which ancient authority combines with practical convenience; and not all of those. To set aside the verdict of time in this respect is to be archaic. Before using inversion, therefore, the novice should ask himself two questions: is there any solid, practical reason (ornamental reasons will not do) for tampering with the normal order of subject and verb? and does the inversion sound natural?
Throughout this section it must be borne in mind that in all questions of right and wrong inversion the final appeal is not to history, but to the reader’s perception: what sounds right to most modern ears is right for modern purposes. When, under balance inversion, we speak of a true and a false principle, we do not mean to imply that the ‘true’ principle was, historically, the origin of this kind of inversion, or that the ‘false’ is a mistaken analogy from it: all that is meant is that if we examine a collection of instances, those that sound natural will prove to be based upon the ‘true’ principle, and those that do not on the ‘false’.
a. Exclamatory inversion.
This may be regarded as an abbreviated form of exclamation, as if the word ‘How’ had dropped out at the beginning, and a note of exclamation at the end. The inverted order, which is normal in the complete exclamation, sounds natural also in the abbreviated form. The requirements for this kind of inversion are these: (1) The intention must be genuinely exclamatory, so that the full form of exclamation could be substituted without extravagance. (2) The word placed first must be that which would bear the chief emphasis in the uninverted form. It should be observed that this is the only kind of inversion in which the emphatic word, as such, stands at the beginning.
Our first three examples satisfy these conditions, and are unobjectionable. The fourth does not: we could not substitute ‘With what difficulty...!’; nor are the first words emphatic; the emphasis is on ‘conceive’. Yet the inversion is inoffensive, being in fact not exclamatory at all, but a licensed extension of negative inversion, which is treated below.
Bitterly did I regret the perverse, superstitious folly that had induced me to neglect so obvious a precaution.
But in these later times, with so many disillusions, with fresh problems confronting science as it advances, rare must be the spirit of faith with which Haeckel regards his work.—Times.
Gladly would he now have consented to the terms....
With difficulty can I conceive of a mental condition in which....
Exclamatory inversion, like everything else that is exclamatory, should of course be used sparingly.
b. Balance inversion.
The following are familiar and legitimate types:
First on our list stands the question of local option.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
To this cause may be attributed....
Among the guests were A, B, C, ... Z.
We give the name of ‘balance’ to this kind of inversion because, although the writer, in inverting the sentence, may not be distinctly conscious of rectifying its balance, the fact that it was ill-balanced before is the true cause of inversion. It is a mistake to say that the words placed first in the above examples are so placed for the sake of emphasis; that is a very common impression, and is responsible for many unlawful inversions. It is not emphasis that is given to these words, it is protection; they are placed there to protect them from being virtually annihilated, as they would have been if left at the end. Look at the last of our examples: how can we call the words ‘Among the guests were’ emphatic, or say that they were placed there for emphasis? They are essential words, they show the connexion, nor could the sentence be a sentence without them; but they are as unemphatic as words could well be.—Why, then (it may be asked), are they put at the beginning? is not this an emphatic position? and does not any unusual position give emphasis?—No: it gives not emphasis but prominence, which is another thing.
Put the sentence back into its original form, and we shall see why inversion was desirable. ‘A, B, C, D, E, F ... Z were among the guests.’ Observe how miserably the sentence tails off; it has no balance. By inverting it, we introduce several improvements. First, we give prominence to the unemphatic predicate, and enable it to discharge its humble office, that of a sign-post, indicating the connexion with what has gone before. Secondly, by giving prominence to the predicate, we give balance to the sentence, which before was top-heavy. Thirdly, we give prominence to the subject, by placing it in an unusual position.
Next take the ‘local option’ sentence. Are the words ‘First on our list’ emphatic? Not if the inverter knows his business. How did it run originally? ‘The question of local option stands first on our list.’ These words might be meant to tell us either of two things: what stood first on the list, or where local option stood. If the inversion is right, they are meant to tell us what stood first. If the other had been meant, then ‘First on the list’ would have been emphatic, and the writer would have left it in its place; but as it is not emphatic, and the other words are, the sentence is top-heavy; he therefore inverts it, thus balancing the sentence, and placing the unemphatic words in a prominent position, where they continue to be unemphatic, but are sure to be noticed. In spoken language, the relative importance of the different parts of a sentence can be indicated merely by the inflexion of the voice; but the balance of the sentence is best maintained, even then, by means of inversion.
It is the same with the other examples. If we restore the St. Matthew quotation to the uninverted form, again we have an answer to either of two questions: What is the basis of the law? and What is the importance of these two commandments? Obviously it is meant as an answer to the latter, and therefore the words that convey that answer are the emphatic words; the others are not emphatic, but merely essential to the connexion; the general importance of the ‘two commandments’, as forming the subject-matter of the whole context, does not in the slightest degree affect their relation to the other words in this particular sentence.
It follows from what has been said that true balance inversion is employed not for the sake of impressiveness, but with the purely negative object of avoiding a bad balance. The data required for its justification are (i) An emphatic subject, carrying in itself the point of the sentence, (ii) Unemphatic ‘sign-post’ words, essential to the connexion, standing originally at the end of the sentence, and there felt to be inadequately placed. The results of the inversion must be (iii) That the sign-post stands at the beginning, (iv) That the subject stands absolutely at the end.
When these four conditions are fulfilled, the inversion, far from being objectionable, may tend greatly to vigour and lucidity. It is liable, of course, to be overdone, but there are several ways of avoiding that: sometimes it is possible to place the sign-post at the beginning without inversion; or the uninverted sentence may be reconstructed, so that the subject no longer carries the emphasis; and, as often as not, a sentence of which the accentuation is theoretically doubtful may in practice be left to the reader’s discernment.
One occasional limitation remains to be mentioned, before we proceed to instances. It applies to those sentences only that have a compound verb: if the compound verb cannot be represented simply by its auxiliary component, the inversion may have to be abandoned, on account of the clumsiness of compound verbs in the middle of an inverted sentence, for to carry the other component to the end would be to violate our fourth rule. Take the type sentence ‘To these causes may be attributed ...’, and first let the subject be ‘our disasters’. The clumsiness of the verb is then distinctly felt; and ‘To these causes may our disasters be attributed’ is ugly enough to show the importance of the rule it violates. But next let the subject be ‘every one of the disasters that have come upon us’. This time the inversion is satisfactory; whence we conclude that if the verb is compound, the subject must be long as well as emphatic, or the inversion will not do.
On the answer to this question depends entirely every decision concerning the goodness or badness of conduct.—Spencer.
Just as, after contact, some molecules of a mass of food are absorbed by the part touched, and excite the act of prehension, so are absorbed such of its molecules as, spreading through the water, reach the organism.—Spencer.
These are both formed on the right principle, but the second suffers from the awkwardness of the auxiliary.
Still more when considered in the concrete than when considered in the abstract do the views of Hobbes and his disciples prove to be inconsistent.—Spencer.
Here we have neither the data that justify balance inversion, nor the results that should follow from it. It is due to the false principle of ‘emphasis’ dealt with below in d. and reads as awkwardly as such inversions usually read. The sentence is, no doubt, cumbrous in the uninverted form; but it wants reconstruction, not inversion.
Much deeper down than the history of the human race must we go to find the beginnings of these connections.—Spencer.
Wrong again, for the same reasons, but not with the same excuse; for the original form is unobjectionable. The emphasis is not on the problem (to find ...), but on the clue to it (much deeper down), which, being emphatic, can maintain its position at the end of the sentence. The compound verb is only a secondary objection: we do not mend matters much by substituting lie for must we go to find.
You say he is selfish. Well, so is every one.
You say he is selfish. Well, so is every one selfish.
So is every one is a correct inversion: so is too weak to stand at the end, and at the beginning it is a good enough sign-post to tell us that selfishness is going to be defended. But so is every one selfish is wrong: for if selfish is repeated at all, it is repeated with rhetorical effect, and is strong enough to take care of itself. Our second rule is thus violated; and so is our fourth—the subject does not come at the end.
All three methods had their charm. So may have Mr. Yeats’s notion of....—Times.
This time, the compound verb is fatal. ‘So, perhaps, has ...’ would do.
The arrival of the Hartmanns created no little excitement in the Falconet family, both among the sons and the daughters. Especially was there no lack of speculation as to the character and appearance of Miss Hartmann.—Beaconsfield.
Right or wrong in principle, this does not read comfortably; but that may seem to be due to the cumbrous phrase ‘was there no lack of’, which for practical purposes is a compound verb. That difficulty we can remove without disturbing the accentuation of the sentence: ‘Especially numerous were the speculations as to the character of Miss Hartmann’. This resembles in form our old type ‘Among the guests were ...’, but with the important difference that ‘especially numerous’ is emphatic, and can therefore stand at the end. The inversion is rather explained than justified by the still stronger emphasis on ‘Miss Hartmann’. Sentences in which both subject and predicate are independently emphatic should be avoided, quite apart from the question of inversion: italics are more or less necessary to secure the inferior emphasis, and italics are a confession of weakness.
Somewhat lightened was the provincial panic by this proof that the murderer had not condescended to sneak into the country, or to abandon for a moment, under any motion of caution or fear, the great metropolitan castra stativa of gigantic crime seated for ever on the Thames.—De Quincey (the italics are his).
Not a happy attempt. We notice, for one thing, that the subject does not come at the end; the inversion is not complete. Let us complete it. To do so, we must convey our huge sign-post to the beginning: ‘By this proof ... Thames, was somewhat lightened the provincial panic.’ Worse than ever; is the compound verb to blame? Remove it, and see: ‘In consequence of this proof ... Thames, subsided in some degree the provincial panic’. This is not much better. There is another and a worse flaw: condition number one is not satisfied; we want ‘an emphatic subject that carries in itself the point of the sentence’. Now we must not assume that because ‘provincial’ is italicized, therefore the subject (however emphatic) carries in itself the point of the sentence. What is that point? what imaginary question does the sentence answer? Can it be meant to answer the question ‘What limitations were there upon the comfort derived from the intelligence that the murderer was still in London?’? No; that question could not be asked; we have not yet been told that any comfort at all was derived. The question it answers is ‘What effect did this intelligence produce upon the general panic?’. This question can be asked; for the reader evidently knows that a panic had prevailed, and that the intelligence had come. If, then, we are to use balance inversion, we must so reconstruct the sentence that the words containing the essential answer to this question become the subject; we must change ‘somewhat lightened’ into ‘some alleviation’. ‘From this proof ... Thames, resulted some alleviation of the provincial panic.’ That is the best that inversion will do for us; it is not quite satisfactory, and the reason is that the sentence is made to do too much. When the essential point is subject to an emphatic limitation (an unemphatic one like ‘somewhat’ does not matter), the limitation ought to be conveyed in a separate sentence; otherwise the sentence is overworked, and either shirks its work, with the result of obscurity, or protests by means of italics. We ought therefore to have: ‘From ... resulted some alleviation of the general panic; this, however, was confined to the provinces’. But, except for this incidental fault, the sentence can be mended without inversion: ‘By this proof ... Thames, the provincial panic was somewhat lightened’.
c. Inversion in syntactic clauses.
In clauses introduced by as, than, or a relative (pronoun or adverb), we have only a special case of balance inversion. They differ from the instances considered above in this important respect, that their relation to the preceding words is no longer paratactic, but syntactic, with the result that the sign-post indicating this relation is necessarily placed at the beginning. This will be seen from a comparison of the paratactic and syntactic forms in the following pairs of examples:
Now in each of these sentences there are the same inducements to inversion in the syntactic form as in the paratactic; and added to these is the necessity for placing the sign-post at the beginning. We might expect, therefore, that inversion of syntactic clauses would be particularly common. But (i) We have already seen that inversion does not necessarily follow from the fact that the sign-post is placed at the beginning. And (ii) The verb in as and than clauses will probably, from the nature of the case, be the same as in the preceding clause. If it is in the same mood and tense, it can usually be omitted, unless effective repetition is required, in which case it will go to the end: a change of mood or tense, on the other hand, will often be marked by an auxiliary (itself perhaps compound), which again will usually preclude inversion.
The result is this:
i. Relative clauses, uninfluenced by the position of the sign-post, remain subject to precisely the same conditions as the corresponding paratactic sentences. Thus ‘Among whom were....’ is right, just as ‘Among the guests were....’ was right; ‘Among which would I mention....’ is of course impossible, because the subject does not carry the point; and ‘To which may be attributed....’ is right or wrong, according as the subject is or is not long enough to balance the compound verb.
ii. Inversion of an as or than clause, having become unusual for the reason mentioned above, is almost certain to look either archaic or clumsy; clumsy when the reason for it is apparent, archaic when it is not. The practical rule is this: if you cannot omit the verb, put it at the end; and if you can neither omit it nor put it at the end, reconstruct the sentence.
The German government was as anxious to upset M. Delcassé as have been his bitterest opponents in France.—Times.
The verb is preserved to avoid ambiguity. But it should go to the end, especially as it is compound.
Relishing humour more than does any other people, the Americans could not be seriously angry.—Bryce.
Ambiguity cannot fairly be pleaded here; the verb should be omitted.
If France remains as firm as did England at that time, she will probably have as much reason as had England to congratulate herself.—Times.
Either ‘as England did’, or, since the parallel is significant, ‘as England then remained’. Also, ‘as England had’.
St. Paul’s writings are as full of apparent paradoxes as sometimes seems the Sermon on the Mount.—Spectator.
The verb must be retained, for the sake of sometimes; but it should go to the end.
But he has performed as have few, if any, in offices similar to his the larger, benigner functions of an Ambassador.—Times.
‘As few ... have performed them.’
Her impropriety was no more improper than is the natural instinct of a bird or animal improper.—E. F. Benson.
This is like the case considered in b. ‘so is every one selfish’. If improper is repeated with rhetorical effect, there is no need of inversion: if not, it should be left out.
There had been from time to time a good deal of interest over Mrs. Emsworth’s career, the sort of interest which does more for a time in filling a theatre than would acting of a finer quality than hers have done.—E. F. Benson.
Either ‘would have done’ at the end, or (perhaps better) no verb at all.
All must join with me in the hope you express—that ... as also must all hope that some good will come of....—Times.
Like the indiscriminate use of while, this ungainly as connexion is popular with slovenly writers, and is always aggravated by inversion. ‘All, too, must hope....’
d. Negative inversion, and false ‘emphasis’ inversion.
The connexion here suggested between certain forms of inversion must be taken to represent, not by any means the historical order of development, with which we are not directly concerned, but the order in which a modern writer may be supposed, more or less unconsciously, to adopt them. Starting from an isolated case of necessary inversion, we proceed to extensions of it that seem natural and are sanctioned by modern usage; and from these to other extensions, based probably on a misunderstanding, and producing in modern writers the effect of archaism.
Nor, except when used in conjunction with neither, always stands first; and if the subject appears at all, the sentence is always inverted. This requires no illustration.
On the analogy of nor, many other negative words and phrases are thrown to the beginning of the sentence, and again inversion is the result.