Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1918 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER III AIRS AND GRACES In this chapter, which from its nature cannot pretend to be exhaustive, we are concerned with certain ornamental foibles; ebullitions of animal spirits incident to young ladies and gentlemen in the first blush of printed publicity. Our quotations, it is true, do not all correspond strictly to this description; but the reader has already observed that the worst faults can often be quoted from the best authors; it remains for him to reflect that such faults can be tolerated in them--and only in them. Habit, too, has something to do with the matter; some of the journalists quoted below could perhaps tell us whether the downward path of inversion, entered in extreme youth, is easily abandoned. It seems a fair inference from contemporary literature that the negative equipment of many writers may be summed up in three rules: do not split your infinitives; do not use the word reliable; do not place a preposition at the end of a sentence. On these three rules the novice exhausts his powers of abstention. After much painful juggling with prepositions that seem by some perverse law of nature to gravitate towards the end, he looks about for a little ornament, by way of recreation; and, since three hard-and-fast rules do not make an education in taste, he is not very particular where he finds it. Among the numerous temptations that assail him, we select a few, beginning with Certain Types Of Humour Some of the more obvious devices of humorous writers, being fatally easy to imitate, tend to outlive their natural term Olfactory organ, once no doubt an agreeable substitute for nose, has ceased to be legal tender in literature, and is felt to mark a low level in conversation. No amount of classical authority can redeem a...
