(From An English Grammar, Baskervill & Sewell, 1895):
Exercises on the Moods.
(a) Tell the mood of each verb in these sentences, and what special use it is of that mood:—
1. Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart and her prayers be.
2. Mark thou this difference, child of earth! / While each performs his part, / Not all the lip can speak is worth / The silence of the heart.
3. Oh, that I might be admitted to thy presence! that mine were the supreme delight of knowing thy will!
4. ‘Twere worth ten years of peaceful life,One glance at their array!
5. Whatever inconvenience ensue, nothing is to be preferred before justice.
6.The vigorous sun would catch it up at eve / And use it for an anvil till he had filled / The shelves of heaven with burning thunderbolts.
7.Meet is it changes should control / Our being, lest we rust in ease.
8.Quoth she, / “The Devil take the goose, / And God forget the stranger!”
9. Think not that I speak for your sakes.
10. “Now tread we a measure!” said young Lochinvar.
11. Were that a just return? Were that Roman magnanimity?
12. Well; how he may do his work, whether he do it right or wrong, or do it at all, is a point which no man in the world has taken the pains to think of.
13. He is, let him live where else he like, in what pomps and prosperities he like, no literary man.
14. Could we one day complete the immense figure which these flagrant points compose! Continue reading “Exercises on the Moods”
- For the virtuoso’s collection,–the pen with which Faust signed away his salvation, with a drop of blood dried in it.
- An article on newspaper advertisements,–a country newspaper, methinks, rather than a city one.
- An eating-house, where all the dishes served out, even to the bread and salt, shall be poisoned with the adulterations that are said to be practised. Perhaps Death himself might be the cook.
- Personify the century,–talk of its present middle age, of its youth, and its adventures and prospects.
- An uneducated countryman, supposing he had a live frog in his stomach, applied himself to the study of medicine in order to find a cure for this disease; and he became a profound physician. Thus misfortune, physical or moral, may be the means of educating and elevating us.
From Mark Twain’s January 1st, 1863 column in the Territorial Enterprise:
Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink, and swore his last oath. To-day, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient short comings considerably shorter than ever. We shall also reflect pleasantly upon how we did the same old thing last year about this time. However, go in, community. New Year’s is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls, and humbug resolutions, and we wish you to enjoy it with a looseness suited to the greatness of the occasion.
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