Page:The king's English (IA kingsenglish00fowlrich).pdf/298

284 incorrect prettiness, but correct prettiness. There is never any difficulty in rewriting sentences like these. (Is the question where he was, &c.?) ('Can a thing both be and not be?' The question is absurd.) But it should be recognized that, if such sentences are to be written, there is only one way to punctuate them.

It may be of interest to show how these sentences stand in the books. 1st sentence ('Essays;'); 2nd (grow.'); 3rd (young,'); 4th, as here; 5th (not,' he exclaimed;) (rather.'); 6th (guess,' he retorted) (mean.'); 7th (Velasquez'?); 8th (saying,) (dies?'). The last two are fabricated.

The objections may now be considered.

'The passing crowd' is a phrase coined in the spirit of indifference. Yet, to a man of what Plato calls 'universal sympathies,' and even to the plain, ordinary denizens of this world, what can be more interesting than 'the passing crowd '?–B.

After giving this example, Beadnell says:—'The reason is clear: the words quoted are those of another, but the question is the writer's own. Nevertheless, for the sake of neatness, the ordinary points, such as the comma, semicolon, colon, and full stop, precede the quotation marks in instances analogous to the one quoted; but the exclamation follows the same rule as the interrogation'.

Singularly enough, the stops that are according to this always to precede the quotation mark (for the 'analogous cases' are the only cases in which the outside position would be so much as considered) are just the ones that by our rules ought hardly ever to do so, whereas the two that are sometimes allowed the outside position are the two that we admit to be as often necessary inside as outside. Neatness is the sole consideration; just as the cars may be regarded as not hearing organs, but 'handsome volutes of the human capital', so quotation marks may be welcomed as giving a good picturesque finish to a sentence; those who are of this way of thinking must feel that, if they allowed outside them anything