Page:The king's English (IA kingsenglish00fowlrich).pdf/86

72 answer, we may be sure that the comparative has no right to its the. We start with a sentence that is entitled to its the, but otherwise unidiomatic.

We are not a whit the less depressed in spirits at the sight of all this unrelieved misery on the stage by the reminder that Euripides was moved to depict it by certain occurrences in his own contemporary Athens.—Times.

The less is less on that account, viz., that we are reminded. But the preposition required when the cause is given in this construction by a noun is for, not by. Read for the reminder. The type is shown in None the better for seeing you. Our sentence is in fact a mixture between Our depression is not lessened by the reminder, and We are not the less depressed for the reminder; and the confusion is the worse that depressed by happens to be a common phrase.

The suggestion, as regarded Mr. Sowerby, was certainly true, and was not the less so as regarded some of Mr. Sowerby's friends.—.

The tells us that we can by looking about us find an answer either to Not less true by what amount? or to Not less true on what account? There is no answer to the first except Not less true about the friends in proportion as it was truer about Mr. Sowerby; and none to the second except Not less true about the friends because it was true about Mr. Sowerby. Both are meaningless, and the the is superfluous and wrong.

Yet as his criticism is more valuable than that of other men, so it is the more rarely met with.—Spectator.

This is such an odd tangle of the two formulae as...so, the more...the more, that the reader is tempted to cut the knot and imagine what is hardly possible, that the is meant for the ordinary article, agreeing with kind of criticism understood between the and more. Otherwise it must be cured either by omitting the, or by writing The more valuable his criticism, the more rarely is it met with. If the latter is done, than that of other men will have to go. Which suggests the further observation that the with a comparative is almost always wrong