(Get) down on your knees, and thank heaven.
(Get) down! Thou climbing sorrow.

(March) on! Stanley; (go) on!

Conclusions In conditional, interrogative, and exclamatory sentences, the entire conclusion, except the interrogative word, is sometimes omitted:

Not

But after negative

What (do we care) though the field be lost? All is not lost.
How (will you do) if your husband start some other where?
What (shall it concern us) though the common people favor ·
him?

The adverb not is occasionally the only representa-
tive of an independent clause, followed by a clause of
result or reason, or a substantive clause:

(I slew him) not that I loved Cæsar less, but that I loved
Rome more.

Wild ambition loves to slide, (wild ambition loves) not to
stand.

The expressions, not but and not but that, sometimes found in a similar construction, involve too many negatives and conjunctions to be used safely.

=

But, after a negative, not, nothing, little not much,
may frequently be construed as a preposition equivalent
to except, and governing an infinitive. This phrase
often follows an abbreviated statement in which the
ellipsis is easily supplied. If but is called a conjunc-
tion, the ellipsis is quite as easily supplied:

She cannot (do anything else) but (= except) grieve for
him.

She cannot (do anything else) but (she can) grieve for him.

He did little (else) but (= except) (to) eat.

He did little (else) but (he did) eat.

xclamatory expressions are frequently abbreviated Exclamatory

ences:

O (it is) shocking!

O (think of) the pity of it!

How absurd (it is)!

(I cry) shame upon you!

O (it is a pity) that men should put an enemy into their mouths to steal away their brains!

expressions

clause

he whole principal clause is often omitted before Independent endent clauses of condition or wishing, or both bined:

O (I long) for the touch of a vanished hand!

(I wonder what you would think) had you but seen my mother!

(You talk) as (you would talk) if I could love such a

man!

If only he would come (I should be content).

omitted

Sometimes a prepositional phrase is all that remains Prepositional a clause in a compound sentence:

She says that he jilted her; (the truth is) far from it.
He claimed to have been neglected; (he was so) far from

phrase left

Other

abbreviations

These are some of the commonest abbreviated sen-
tences. There are others for which a study of these
will suggest the explanation. There are others which,
instead of supplying the ellipsis, it seems best to con-
strue just as they stand, they conform so nearly to
usual constructions. Still others are such mere rem-

nants, or are left so peculiar by ellipses and inversions,
that it is best to call them "idiomatic expressions," that
is, constructions that do not conform to general linguis-
tic usage, but are peculiar to the language where they
are found.

Punctuation. XX. The ellipsis of a verb, some-
times of another word, understood from a preceding
clause, is marked by a comma.

Note. -I. He runs as if the speed of thought were in his limbs.

EXERCISES

To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.

I stood among them, but not of them.
I do desire we may be better strangers.
We have scotched the snake, not killed it.
Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it.
It is not, nor it cannot come to good.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not expressed in fancy.

Anger wishes that mankind had two necks; love, that two hearts.

. I was the man the duke spoke to.

. Claret is the liquor for boys; port, for men.

. From toil he wins his spirit light;

From busy day, the peaceful night.

. I am nothing if not critical.

3. Ships are but boards; sailors, but men.

4. I am a man more sinned against than sinning. 5. Tell me, how is fancy bred?

Or in the heart, or in the head?

How begot, how nourished?

6. Thou makest a testament as worldlings do.

7. Well said; that was laid on with a trowel. 8. Let bears and lions growl and fight,

For 'tis their nature to.

9. Nor love thy life nor hate; but what thou livest, Live well; how long or short permit to heaven.

co. The lion is not so fierce as painted.

21. Golden lads and girls all must

As chimney sweeners come to dust.

22. Get wealth and place; if possible, with grace:

If not, by any means, get wealth and place. 23. In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold Alike fantastic if too new or old.

24. True ease in writing comes from art, not chance. 25. A fool at forty is a fool indeed.

Condemn the fault and not the actor of it.

26. Get money, boy; no matter by what means.

27. Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull; Strong without rage; without o'erflowing full.

28. Thus woe succeeds a woe as wave a wave; A fig for care! A fig for woe!

29.

She is as beautiful as sweet; as young as beautiful; as soft as young; as gay and innocent as soft.

30. As good to be out of the world as out of fashion. 31. And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.

32. As a wit he was, if not first, in the very first rank. 33. Thank you, sir; I owe you one.

34. To reign is worth ambition, though in hell.

35. Where was she born? In Argier. Was she so? 36. I say thou liest. Do I so?

37.

I have loved you more as son than as brother, let me tell you.

38. Beauty comes, we scarce know how, and goes we know not where; but her sources are deeper than herself. 39. What matter to me, if their star is a world? 40. O for a lodge in some vast wilderness!

41. Here is everything advantageous to live. True: save means to live.

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42. To the memory of the Man, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen..

43. The blood more stirs to rouse a lion than to start a hare.

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