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eminence of your station gave you a commanding prospect of your duty.
VII. When the subject is long, a comma may be placed after it.
To say that he endured without a murmur the misfortune that now came upon him, is to say only what his previous life would have led us to expect.
In every sentence the subject, whether expressed in one word or in several words, must be grasped as a whole; and, when the subject is long, one is often assisted in doing this by having a point to mark its termination. The eye at once observes the separating line. Note the corresponding pause in the reading of such sentences.
VIII. When the subject consists of several parts, e.g., of several nouns, a comma is placed after the last part.
A few daring jests, a brawl, and a fatal stab, make up the life of Marlowe.
Time, money, and friends, were needed to carry on the work.
This rule will appear reasonable if we consider an apparent exception to it. When the last noun sums up all the others, or marks the highest point of a climax, no comma is placed after it.
Freedom, honour, religion was at stake.
If "religion" be regarded as marking the highest point of a climax, the predicate is read with "religion," and with it alone. When so great a thing as religion is said to be at stake, everything else is dropped out of sight, or is held to be included. But write the three names as if they were of equal importance; the comma should then be inserted:
Freedom, honour, and religion, were at stake.
But it is not necessary to use a point in such a sentence as this: "Time and tide wait for no man." For we see without the aid of a point that the predicate is to be read with the two nouns equally.
The principle might be applied also in cases like the following, though few writers carry it so far:
It was the act of a high-spirited, generous, just nation.
It was the act of a high-spirited, generous, and just, nation.
IX. Dependent clauses are generally separated from the rest of the sentence in which they occur. The usual point is the comma.
Be his motives what they may, he must soon disperse his followers.
This relation of your army to the crown will, if I am not greatly mistaken, become a serious dilemma in your politics.
Of course, this rule must be qualified by the rules for the stronger points, especially by those for the semicolon and the colon. It is often necessary to separate the clause from the rest of the sentence by a strong point.
EXCEPTIONS.--(I) No point is needed if either the dependent clause or the principal clause be short.
He would be shocked if he were to know the truth.
But if the dependent clause be inserted parenthetically, it is marked off by commas or the other marks of parenthesis, however short it may be. (See Rule X.)
If the sentence last quoted were inverted, a comma would be placed after the dependent clause.
If he were to know the truth, he would be shocked.
In the first form of this example, "he would be shocked" is a definite, finished statement, the necessary qualification to which should follow with as little pause as possible. But in the inverted form, the first part of the sentence--"if he were to know the truth"--is not a finished statement, and the mind may pause for a moment before going on to the consequence, knowing that the consequence must follow.
(2) No point is needed if there be a very close grammatical connection between the dependent clause and some word or words preceding it.
They had so long brooded over their own distresses that they knew nothing of how the world was changing around them.
Note that by the word "so" the clause "that they knew nothing" is joined very closely to the previous part of the sentence; and that the two clauses "that they knew nothing" and "how the world was changing around them," are even more closely joined to one another by the preposition "of." For the same reason, where the object is a clause, there is no point before it.
He confessed to us that he had not thought over the matter.
A useful distinction will afterwards be drawn between the different kinds of relative clauses. (Rule XIV.)
X. Words thrown in so as to interrupt slightly the flow of a sentence are marked off by commas.
He resolved, therefore, to visit the prisoner early in the morning.
This, I think, is the right view of the case.
The first ideas of beauty formed by the mind are, in all probability, derived from colours.
The following are some of the words and phrases that come under this rule: therefore, too, indeed, however, moreover, then, accordingly, consequently; in short, in fine, in truth, in fact, to