The DASH [-] is a straight horizontal line, used for the purposes specified in the following rules.*

RULE I.

Broken and Epigrammatic Sentences.

The dash is used where a sentence breaks off abruptly, and the subject is changed; where the sense is suspended, and is continued after a short interruption; where a significant or long pause is required; and where there is an unexpected or epigrammatic turn in the sentiment.

EXAMPLES.

1. Was there ever a bolder captain of a more valiant band? Was there ever- But I scorn to boast.

2. Then the eye of a child — who can look unmoved into that "well undefiled," in which heaven itself seems to be reflected?

3. You have given the command to a person of illustrious birth, of ancient family, of innumerable statues, but-of no experience.

4. HERE LIES THE GREAT

did dust lies here.

False marble, where? Nothing but sor

REMARKS.

a. In the preceding examples, no grammatical point is used with the dash, because, in the first two and the last one, none would seem to be required if the sentences broken off had been finished; and because, in the third, the word "but," before the mark showing the

TO THE TEACHER. There is perhaps no point of whose uses a knowledge is more requisite than those of the dash, and none respecting which there is a greater amount of ignorance: some writers unceremoniously introducing it everywhere to supply the place of the comma, the semicolon, or the colon; and others as unpolitely banishing it from that province which cannot be so well occupied by any other point. The principles of its application are not, indeed, difficult to understand; but they should not be hurried over, as if the employment or rejection of the dash were a matter of no importance.

suspensive pause, is intimately connected in sense with the phrase that follows it. But, if the parts of a sentence, between which the pause of suspension is to be made, are susceptible of being grammatically divided, their proper point should be inserted before the dash; as, "He sometimes counsel takes,· and sometimes snuff."

b. Passages of the following kind, in which an unfinished question is taken up immediately afterwards in an alternate form, may be brought under the operation of the present rule; the dash, with a comma before it, being placed after the commencing portion of the sentence: "Who could best describe to you a country, travelled its entire surface, or he who had just landed on its shores? Who could best breathe into you the spirit of Christian love, — he who had scarcely learned to control his own passions, or Jesus of Nazareth?"

he who had

Why are dashes inserted in the following sentences?·

Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, any thing but live for it.

tory

Greece, Carthage, Rome, where are they? The pages of hishow is it that they are so dark and sad? If you will give me your attention, I will show I do not know that you wish to see.

Leonidas, Cato, Phocion, Tell,

you

But stop!

one peculiarity marks them all :

they dared and suffered for their native land. If thou art he, so much respected once

how degraded!

But, oh, how fallen!

The good woman was allowed by everybody, except her husband, to be a sweet-tempered lady when not in liquor.

I take eh! oh! - as much exercise · eh!·

Gout. You know my sedentary state.

as I can, Madam

Hast thou But how shall I ask a question which must bring tears into so many eyes?

There are several methods of humbling a proud man; but the best is to take no notice of him.

"Sir, I beg leave to tell you, that you are

Come, Gaza, Ashdod, come!

rejoice; for Saul is nothing.

Let Ekron boast, and Askelon

"Lord Cardinal! if thou think'st on heaven's bliss, hold up thy

hand; make signal of thy hope.”·

He dies, and makes no sign.

"I plunged right into the debate, and "

word to the point, of course."

"Did not say a

Horror burst the bands of sleep; but my feelings are too weak, too powerless, to express them.

Words

EXERCISES TO BE WRITTEN.

In the following sentences, insert dashes wherever necessary:

"I forgot my" "Your portmanteau ?" hastily interrupted Henry. "The same."

To reward men according to their worth alas! the perfection of this, we know, amounts to the millennium.

Thou dost not mean No, no: thou wouldst not have me make a trial of my skill upon my child!

At church, in silks and satins new, with hoop of monstrous size, she never slumbered in her pew but when she shut her eyes.

"Please your honor," quoth Trim, "the Inquisition is the vilest" "Prithee, spare thy description, Trim. I hate the very name of it," said my father.

Frankness, suavity, tenderness, benevolence, breathed through their exercise. And his family But he is gone: that noble heart beats

no more.

He suffered, but his pangs are o'er; enjoyed, but his delights are fled; had friends, his friends are now no more; and foes, his foes are dead.

When the poor victims were bayoneted, clinging round the knees of the soldiers, would my friend But I cannot pursue the strain of my interrogation.

Approaching the head of the bed, where my poor young companion, with throat uncovered, was lying, with one hand the monster grasped his knife, and with the other ah, cousin! with the other he seized a ham.

What beside a few mouldering and brittle ruins, which time is imperceptibly touching down into dust, what, beside these, remains of the glory, the grandeur, the intelligence, the supremacy, of the Grecian republics, or the empire of Rome?

The people lifted up their voices, and blessed the good St. Nicholas; and, from that time forth, the sage Van Kortland was held in more honor than ever for his great talent at dreaming, and was pronounced a most useful citizen and a right good man when he was asleep.

In thirty years the western breeze had not fanned his blood: he had seen no sun, no moon, in all that time; nor had the voice of friend or kinsman breathed through his lattice. His children but here my heart began to bleed, and I was forced to go on with another part of the portrait.

I now solemnly declare, that, so far as personal happiness is concerned, I would infinitely prefer to pass my life as a member of the bar, in the practice of my profession, according to the ability which God has given me, to that life which I have led, and in which I have held places of high trust, honor, respectability, and obloquy.

RULE II.

A Concluding Clause on which other Expressions depend.

A dash should be used after several words or expressions, when these constitute a nominative which is broken off, and resumed in a summary form; and after a long member, or a series of phrases or clauses, when they lead to an important conclusion.

EXAMPLES.

1. That patriotism which, catching its inspirations from the immortal God, and leaving at an immeasurable distance below all lesser, grovelling, personal interests and feelings, animates and prompts to deeds of selfsacrifice, of valor, of devotion, and of death itself, that is public virtue; that is the noblest, the sublimest, of all public virtues.

2. The infinity of worlds, and the narrow spot of earth which we call our country or our home; the eternity of ages, and the few hours of life; the almighty power of God, and human nothingness, it is impossible to think of these in succession, without a feeling like that which is produced by the sublimest eloquence.

REMARK.

Instead of a comma and a dash, which are used in these examples immediately before the finishing clause of the sentence, some writers would insert a colon; but the punctuation adopted above seems to exhibit the construction and sense to more advantage, and to be more in harmony with the rhetorical character of such passages.

ORAL EXERCISE.

State why dashes are inserted in the following sentences: —

:

At school and at college, the great vision of Rome broods over the mind with a power which is never suspended or disputed her great men, her beautiful legends, her history, the height to which she rose, and the depth to which she fell, these make up one half of a student's ideal world.

When ambition practises the monstrous doctrine of millions made for individuals, their playthings, to be demolished at their caprice; sporting wantonly with the rights, the peace, the comforts, the existence, of nations, as if their intoxicated pride would, if possible, make God's earth itself their football, is not the good man indignant?

The affections which spread beyond ourselves, and stretch far into futurity; the workings of mighty passions, which seem to arm the soul with an almost superhuman energy; the innocent and irrepressible

joy of infancy; the bloom and buoyancy and dazzling hopes of youth; the throbbings of the heart, when it first wakes to love, and dreams of a happiness too vast for earth; woman, with her beauty and grace and gentleness, and fulness of feeling, and depth of affection, and blushes of purity, and the tones and looks which only a mother's heart can inspire, - these are all poetical.

That gush of human sympathy which brought tears into Charles Lamb's eyes, when he mingled in the living tide which pours through the streets of London, and he felt his heart beat responsive to the warm pulse of joy as it throbbed past him, what was it but the vivid consciousness of God; the breath of the Father, softening the bosom over which it swept, and filling it with his own merciful tenderness towards the great family of man?

EXERCISE TO BE WRITTEN.

Let dashes be introduced into these sentences, in accordance with the Rule:

The collision of mind with mind; the tug and strain of intellectual wrestling; the tension of every mental fibre, as the student reaches forth to take hold of the topmost pinnacle of thought; the shout of joy that swells up from gladsome voices, as he stands upon the summit, with error under his feet, these make men.

The modest flower, nestling in the meadow-grass; the happy tree, as it laughs and riots in the wind; the moody cloud, knitting its brow in solemn thought; the river that has been flowing all night long; the sound of the thirsty earth, as it drinks and relishes the rain, these things are as a full hymn when they flow from the melody of nature, but an empty rhythm when scanned by the finger of art.

Wherever on this earth an understanding is active to know and serve the truth; wherever a heart beats with kind and pure and generous affections; wherever a home spreads its sheltering wing over husband and wife, and parent and child, there, under every diversity of outward circumstance, the true worth and dignity and peace of man's soul are within reach of all.

When, at God's decree, human greatness from all its state falls to the ground like a leaf; when death, usually doing its work in silence, seems to cry out over the bier of the high and distinguished; when some figure, that has moved with imposing tread in our sight, towers still more out of the dark valley; when the drapery of mourning unrolls itself from private chambers to line the streets, darken the windows, and hang the heavens in black; when the stroke of the bell adds a sabbath solemnity to the days of the week, and the boom of guns, better fired over the dead than at the living, echoes all through our territory; while the wheels of business stop, and labor leans its head, and trade foregoes its gains, and communication, save on one theme, ceases, we may well ask the meaning and cause.