"This change, though mainly owing to their own violence and threats of revolution, excited no small indignation and some alarm in the minds of the Reformers .. (Alison, ch. xxiii.)

Here again the simplest way is the best :

"This change, though mainly owing to the violence and threats of revolution on the part of the Reformers, excited no small indignation and alarm in their minds..."

§ 50. Quite distinct from the above faulty usage, is the employment of the pronouns he, she, this, that, as pure demonstratives; so as to call special attention to what is about to be enunciated. In such cases the pronoun is a mere index or pointer, and as such naturally comes first. Take the following as examples :

"He must be a thorough fool, who can learn nothing from his own folly." (Hare, Guesses.)

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[It is nevertheless] true that he would confer the greatest obligation on German literature, who should prevail on their writers to cut their long sentences into four, their short into two." (Alison, ch. xxviii.)

"Who thus define it, say they more or less

Than this-that happiness is happiness." (Pope, Essay, iv.) "The announcement was made that there was to be another change; that was to occur under his auspices, which, only a few months before, he had aptly described as a social revolution." (Debates.)

§ 51. One . . . ones.- "The Indefinite pronoun one is

used like the French on, and the German man, to denote an individual as representing people in general." (E. Gr. § 104.)

Examples:

"One can say to one's friend the things that stand in need of pardon, and at the same time be sure of it." (Pope, Letters.)

"One would know much better what to do if men's characters were more consistent, and especially if one's friends were invariably fit for any function they desired to undertake." (Middlemarch, p. 131.)

The possessive case of one, when thus used, is one's-as in the above instances. Not unfrequently, however, we find the possessive form his used instead of one's, and the reflexive form himself instead of oneself. This inaccuracy should be carefully avoided.

Further, this use of " one "should be sparingly resorted to. For a brief, familiar observation, no form can be better suited. It has an easy, confidential air, which harmonizes well with the communication of some shrewd hint or comment; especially one which is the fruit of the

F

writer's own experience-as if he were taking the reader by the sleeve to whisper something in his ear. But it is a style of speech which becomes offensive when prolonged. There is a somewhat similar use of the pronoun you, where it means not some particular person or persons addressed, but any one to whom the remark may apply. The following passage is an example:

"What a compliment to a Minister-not only to vote for him, but to vote for him against your opinions, and in favour of opinions which he had always drilled you to distrust." (Debates.)

The same cautions apply to this use of you as to the use of the pronoun one which has just been explained.

$ 52. The pronoun one is also sometimes used to avoid the repetition of a noun already used. (E. Gr. § 104.) In this sense it has a plural ones. But this is a usage sparingly resorted to by good authors, and the plural especially is inelegant. This is the case in the following examples :

"Lord Melbourne was a man of very different abilities and character from the eminent ones which have now been drawn." (Alison, ch. xxiii.)

[Here it would have been every way better to repeat the noun-whichever be the noun meant by the writer :

"Lord Melbourne was a man of very different abilities and character from the eminent men which have now been drawn."-[Questionable English even so; for it is harsh to speak of "drawing" men. Probably the writer really meant to say-" the eminent men whose characters have now been drawn."]

"To restore Poland is not to introduce new ways, but to return to old ones." (Ib. ch. xxvi.)

This is perhaps admissible; though the word "ones" is really superfluous. (See below, p. 68.) The following is inelegant in the extreme

"His [Ruckhärt's] amatory verses, which are very numerous, resemble the Italian ones in the decline of taste, when conceit and exaggeration had come in place of the simplicity of genuine affection." (Ib. ch. xxviii.)

§ 53. As occasions are continually arising when the use of the form one, ones, suggests itself, it is well to see how some of our best writers deal with such cases.

(1) In the first place the noun may often be repeated. This plan is usually preferred by Macaulay: as in the following instances:

"The army which now became supreme in the state was an army [not "one"] very different from any that has since been seen among us. (Mac. H. E. i. 120.)

"But such was the intelligence, the gravity, and the self-command of the warriors whom Cromwell had trained, that in their camp a political organization and a religious organization could exist without destroying military organization." (1b. i. 122.)

"The power which he had called into existence was a power [not 66 one"] which even he could not always control." (Ib. p. 125.)

"He saw precisely where the strength of the Royalists lay, and by what means alone that strength could be overpowered. He saw also that there were abundant and excellent materials for the purpose. materials less showy [not "less showy ones"] indeed, but more solid, than those of which the gallant squadrons of the King were composed.' (Ib. p. 118.)

The same method is employed in the following passages:

"There are some scenes of horror, on which my imagination can dwell, not without some complacence. But then they are such scenes as God, not man, produces." (Cowper, Letters, vi. 166.)

"Gotham, unless I am a greater blockhead than he " [some critic], "which I am far from believing, is a noble and beautiful poem, and a poem with which I make no doubt the author took as much pains as with any he ever wrote." (Ib. p. 10.)

"The honourable gentleman is a master of statistics, but of statistics of a different kind from those we are accustomed to in this House. . ." (Debates.)

A vigorous writer has no weak dread of repetition. Repetition is only bad when it arises from poverty of language; and when it is used by definite purpose of the writer, it carries force and emphasis with it. An unpractised writer would scarcely have ventured to repeat thrice the word "organization," as Macaulay has repeated it in the second of the above extracts. Yet the sentence is not only perfectly good as it stands, but is peculiarly adapted, by its very iteration, to impress upon the mind of the reader the distinctness of the three different "organizations" referred to. If it can scarcely be said to have the charm of elegance, it has the more essential merits of definiteness and strength.

(2) When the same noun is to be taken with two different adjectives, it may be expressed with one of them and understood with the other. This is the idiom of Latin and of French. Take the sentence from Alison, p. 66, "[this] is not to introduce new ways, but to return to old

ones

The Latin would be

"Hoc est non novas inferre rationes, sed ad antiquas reverti."

French

"Cela n'est pas introduire de nouvelles façons, mais revenir aux vieilles."

So we may say—

"To restore Poland is not to introduce new ways, but to return to old."

The noun is sometimes expressed with the former adjective and sometimes with the latter. The following may serve as examples :

"Charles was not only a most unscrupulous, but a most unlucky dissembler." (Mac. H. E. i. 45.)

(Here if we express the noun with the former adjective we must use the pronoun 66 one "with the latter, thus :"Charles was not only a most unscrupulous dissembler, but a most unlucky one.")

"Of these there were thirteen principal deities and more than two hundred inferior." (Prescott, Mex. i. 45.)

Here it would have been equally correct to bring the noun to the end, thus:

"Of these there were thirteen principal, and more than two hundred inferior deities."

(3) Careful writers often manage not only to avoid the repetition of the noun-or the use of a somewhat insignificant pronoun-but at the same time, by the use of a somewhat different expression, to give greater point to a sentence. Take the following examples :

"Fairfax

was the nominal Lord General of the forces, but Cromwell was the real head." (Mac. H. E. i. 119.)

"No court, known by law, would take on itself the office of judging the fountain of justice. A revolutionary tribunal was created." (Ib. p. 128.)

"There were risings in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Kent, Wales While Fairfax suppressed the risings in the neighbourhood of the capital, Oliver routed the Welsh insurgents, and leaving their castles in ruins, marched against the Scots." (lb. p. 124.)

In each of these three examples, there is a point gained, and the effect is heightened by the introduction of a fresh

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term. "Head" is more expressive and à propos than general"; the foreign word "tribunal" is at once felt to be the very word to denote the irregular and unconstitutional court which tried Charles: and again, "routed the... insurgents" gives more animation to the sentence than if the phrase "suppressed the . . . risings" had been simply repeated.

Sometimes the repetition of the noun may be avoided by the use of a synonym, especially one of a somewhat wider signification: e.g.

"It was an ancient tradition, that when the Capitol was founded by one of the Roman kings, the god Terminus . . . alone, among all the inferior deities, refused to yield his place to Jupiter himself." (Gibbon, ch. i.)

"6 it was very reasonably presumed, that the hardy occupations of smiths, carpenters, and huntsmen, would supply more vigour and resolution, than the sedentary trades which are employed in the service of luxury." (Ib.)

§ 54. In general it will be a safe rule to avoid this use of the plural "ones "--if not of the singular "one "-in all writing which partakes of the higher style; while employing it freely either in epistolary correspondence or in any kind of light, familiar composition.

§ 55. As with the force of a Relative.-"The adverb as has sometimes the force of a relative, especially after the words such, same (E. Gr. §§ 100, 101.)

But "as" must on no account be used as equivalent to a relative with a preposition. The following sentences are both incorrect and vulgar :

"He put his theories into practice with the same levity as (=with which) he had maintained them in the sparkling conversaziones of the capital." (White, H. F. p. 400.)

'More than a year ago, I rose in my place, and said that it appeared to me that protection was in about the same state as (= in which) Protestantism was in 1828." (Debates.)