English grammar is so complex and confusing for the one very simple reason that its rules and terminology are based on Latin--a la...nguage with which it has precious little in common. In Latin, to take one example, it is not possible to split an infinitive. So in English, the early authorities decided, it should not be possible to split an infinitive either. But there is no reason why we shouldn't, any more than we should forsake instant coffee and air travel because they weren't available to the Romans. Making English grammar conform to Latin rules is like asking people to play baseball using the rules of football. It is a patent absurdity. But once this insane notion became established, grammarians found themselves having to draw up ever more complicated and circular arguments to accommodate the inconsistencies.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The cultivated apple tree was first introduced into this country by the earliest settlers, and is thought to do as well or better ...here than anywhere else. Probably some of the varieties which are now cultivated were first introduced into Britain by the Romans. Pliny, adopting the distinction of Theophrastus, says, "Of trees there are some which are altogether wild (sylvestres), some more civilized (urbaniores)." Theophrastus includes the apple among the last; and, indeed, it is in this sense the most civilized of all trees. It is as harmless as a dove, as beautiful as a rose, and as valuable as flocks and herds. It has been longer cultivated than any other, and so is more humanized; and who knows but, like the dog, it will at length be no longer traceable to its wild original? It migrates with man, like the dog and horse and cow: first, perchance, from Greece to Italy, thence to England, thence to America; and our Western emigrant is still marching steadily toward the setting sun with the seeds of the apple in his pocket, or perhaps a few young trees strapped to his load.... For when man migrates, he carries with him not only his birds, quadrupeds, insects, vegetables, and his very sward, but his orchard also.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The radical changes in society from the small, well-considered hundreds to the countless thousands have of course destroyed the ne...ighborly character of the strange conglomerate. It is more ornamental and much more luxurious now than then.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is a wilderness of commonplace and much that is ugly and poor.... there seems no inspiration, no evolvement of the beautiful..., no intricate poetic conception, no freshness. It is all "technique, technique." There is little independence of vision; all "treatment" with no apprehension of the thing to treat.... They are adventurous, these artists. They draw admirably; they do not color so well, and they have few ideals.... that ideal which was once the real world of the artist seems to have fled, and that present world, "all around us lying," does not seem to have revealed itself to the artist with its truest and most tender grace.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We went on, feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the soldier, binding up his wounds, harboring the stranger, ...visiting the sick, ministering to the prisoner, and burying the dead, until that blessed day at Appomattox Court House relieved the strain.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
And let Reform her columns roll. With thunder peal, and lightening flash.... We'll preach deliverance to the soul. 'Mid proud Oppression's waning crash.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The man who would change the name of Arkansas is the original, iron-jawed, brass-mouthed, copper-bellied corpse-maker from the wil...ds of the Ozarks! He is the man they call Sudden Death and General Desolation! Sired by a hurricane, dam'd by an earthquake, half-brother to the cholera, nearly related to the smallpox on his mother's side!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Who will join in the march to the Rocky Mountains with me, a sort of high-pressure-double-cylinder-go-it-ahead-forty-wildcats- tea...rin' sort of a feller?... Git out of this warming-pan, ye holly-hocks, and go out to the West where you may be seen.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is told that some divorcees, elated by their freedom, pause on leaving the courthouse to kiss a front pillar, or even walk to t...he Truckee to hurl their wedding rings into the river; but boys who recover the rings declare they are of the dime-store variety, and accuse the throwers of fraudulent practices.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »