One of the most important things, to my mind, in English style is word-order. For us, the most emphatic place in a clause or sente...nce is the end. This is the climax; and, during the momentary pause that follows, that last word continues, as it were, to reverberate in the reader's mind. It has, in fact, the last word. One should therefore think twice about what one puts at a sentence-end. But in a German sentence this final position may be reserved, by a most curious grammatical convention, for an infinitive or past participle; or, in a subordinate clause, for the main verb. Thus logical emphasis, unless particularly strong, tends to be sacrificed to mere grammar.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Long ago I added to the true old adage of "What is everybody's business is nobody's business," another clause which, I think, more... than any other principle has served to influence my actions in life. That is, What is nobody's business is my business.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... in America, alone ... women are raised to an equality with the other sex; and ... both in theory and practice, their interests... are regarded as of equal value. They are made subordinate in station, only where a regard to their best interests demands it, while, as if in compensation for this, by custom and courtesy, they are always treated as superiors. Universally, in this Country, through every class of society, precedence is given to woman, in all the comforts, conveniences, and courtesies of life.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Boswell, when he speaks of his Life of Johnson, calls it my magnum opus, but it may more properly be called his opera, for it is t...ruly a composition founded on a true story, in which there is a hero with a number of subordinate characters, and an alternate succession of recitative and airs of various tone and effect, all however in delightful animation.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Well, the wedding is over, the good folks are joined for better for worse--a shocking clause that!--'tis preparing one to lead a l...ong journey, and to know the path is not altogether strewed with roses.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
And then ... he flung open the door of my compartment, and ushered in "Ma young and lovely lady!" I muttered to myself with some b...itterness. "And this is, of course, the opening scene of Vol. I. She is the Heroine. And I am one of those subordinate characters that only turn up when needed for the development of her destiny, and whose final appearance is outside the church, waiting to greet the Happy Pair!"LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The higher processes are all processes of simplification. The novelist must learn to write, and then he must unlearn it; just as t...he modern painter learns to draw, and then learns when utterly to disregard his accomplishment, when to subordinate it to a higher and truer effect.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... the attempt to control poetry, to subordinate it to extrapoetic ends, constitutes misuse.... it may be poetry's stubborn quali...ty of rockbottom, intrinsic uselessness which ... constitutes the guarantee of its integrity, and hence of its ultimate value to us.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In the learned journal, in the influential newspaper, I discern no form; only some irresponsible shadow; oftener some monied corpo...ration, or some dangler, who hopes, in the mask and robes of his paragraph, to pass for somebody. But through every clause and part of speech of the right book I meet the eyes of the most determined men; his force and terror inundate every word: the commas and dashes are alive; so that the writing is athletic and nimble,--can go far and live long.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »