SECT. I. THE NOTES OF INTERROGATION AND EXCLAMATION.

1. The NOTE OF INTERROGATION [?] shows that a question is denoted by the words to which it is annexed.

2. The NOTE OF EXCLAMATION [!] indicates passion or emotion.

REMARK.

The notes of interrogation and exclamation do not mark the relative pauses of the voice; occupying, as they do, sometimes the place of the comma or the semicolon, and sometimes that of the colon or the period. But they are usually put at the end of sentences, and are equivalent to a full point; requiring, therefore, in the majority of instances, the word that follows to begin with a capital letter, as after the period.

RULE I.

Expressions in the Form of Questions.

The note of interrogation is placed at the end of every question.*

EXAMPLES.

1. Why, for so many a year, has the poet or the philosopher wandered amid the fragments of Athens or of Rome; and paused, with strange and kindling feelings, amid their broken columns, their mouldering temples, their deserted plains? It is because their day of glory is past.

2. How can he exalt his thoughts to any thing great or noble who only believes, that, after a short term on the stage of existence, he is to sink into oblivion, and to lose his consciousness for ever?

REMARKS.

a. The first of these passages exemplifies a sentence expressive of direct inquiry; the second, one that is assertive in its meaning, but interrogative in its structure or form.

TO THE TEACHER. It should be explained to the pupil, that this rule applies to all questions, whether they require answers, or are put, merely for the sake of emphasis, in an interrogative form.

b. The mark of interrogation should not be used when it is only affirmed that a question has been asked, and the expression denoting inquiry is put in any other shape than that of a direct question; as, "I was asked if I would stop for dinner." If put in the interrogative form, this sentence would be read and punctuated according to the rule: "I was asked, 'Will you stop for dinner?'"

c. In some instances, however, a question may be assertive in its form, but interrogative in its sense; as, "You will stop for dinner ?" In order to distinguish a sentence of this kind from one that is affirmative both in form and signification, it is obvious that the note of interrogation should be employed.

d. It is a common error to make one interrogative mark represent several successive questions, which, though connected in sense, are in construction distinct and separate; and to substitute semicolons or dashes where notes of interrogation should be used. In the following passage, therefore, each question should be distinguished by its appropriate mark, and not by dashes, which are used in the original: "What is civilization? Where is it? What does it consist in ? By what is it excluded? Where does it commence? Where does it end? By what sign is it known? How is it defined? In short, what does it mean?"

e. When, however, the expressions denoting inquiry cannot be separated, and read alone, without materially injuring the sense, one mark of interrogation, placed at the end of all the questions, will be sufficient; as, "Ah! whither now are fled those dreams of greatness; those busy, bustling days; those gay-spent, festive nights; those veering thoughts, lost between good and ill, that shared thy life ? ”

After mentioning the distinctive uses of the notes of interrogation and exclamation, say why interrogative marks are inserted in these sentences:

Are there not seasons of spring in the moral world? and is not the present age one of them?

Who can look only at the muscles of the hand, and doubt that man was made to work?

The past, the mighty past, the parent of the present, where is it? What is it?

Are the palaces of kings to be regarded with more interest than the humbler roofs that shelter millions of human beings?

Who would tear asunder the best affections of the heart, the noblest instincts of our nature?

Have you more liberty allowed you to wound your neighbor's character than you have to shed his blood?

What but the ever-living power of literature and religion preserved the light of civilization, and the intellectual stores of the past, undi

minished in Greece, during the long and dreary ages of the decline and downfall of the Roman empire?

A gaudy verbosity is always eloquence in the opinion of him who writes it; but what is the effect on the reader?

Greece, indeed, fell; but how did she fall? Did she fall like Babylon? Did she fall "like Lucifer, never to hope again"? *

Bion, seeing a person who was tearing the hair of his head for sorrow, said, "Does this man think that baldness is a remedy for grief?" Is the celestial fire which glowed in their hearts for ever quenched, and nought but ashes left to mingle with the earth, and be blown around the world?

You say you will repent in some future period of time; but are you sure of arriving at that period of time? Have you one hour in your hand? Have you one minute at your disposal?

Show how the Rule or the Remarks (pp. 93-4) will apply to the punctuation of these sentences:·

"Honest man," says I, "be so good as to inform me whether I am in the way to Mirlington."

The question is not what we might actually wish with our present views, but what with juster views we ought to wish.

When a king asked Euclid the mathematician whether he could not explain his art to him in a more compendious manner, he was answered that there was no royal way to geometry.

"The sun not yet set, Thomas ?" "Not quite, sir. It blazes through the trees on the hill yonder, as if their branches were all on fire."

The Phoenicians invented letters; but what did they do with them? Apply them to the record, the diffusion, transmission, and preservation of knowledge?

You do not expect me to leave my family, when we are all so comfortable, and brave the perils of a long passage and sickly climate, for the mere chance of getting gold?

Can gray hairs make folly venerable? and is not their period to be reserved for retirement and meditation?

Are the stars, that gem the vault of the heavens above us, mere decorations of the night, or suns and centres of planetary systems? Where be your gibes now; your gambols; your songs; your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table in a roar?

Are you conscious of a like increase in wisdom,-in pure endeavors to make yourself and other men what you and they ought to be?

Is there any man so swelled by the conceit of his union with the true church, as to stand apart, and say, "I am holier than thou"?*

* TO THE TEACHER. - See the author's "Treatise on English Punctuation," p. 156, Remark f; and p. 161, Remark e.

RULE II.

Expressions indicating Passion or Emotion.

The note of exclamation is put after terms and expressions denoting an ardent wish, admiration, wonder, contempt, or any other strong emotion.

EXAMPLES.

1. Would that we had maintained our humble state, and continued to live in peace and poverty!

2. How sweet are the slumbers of him who can lie down on his pillow, and review the transactions of every day, without condemning himself! 3. What a fearful handwriting upon the walls that surround the deeds of darkness, duplicity, and sensual crime!

4. Away, all ye Cæsars and Napoleons! to your own dark and frightful domains of slaughter and misery!

5. Hurra, hurra! There goes our Jimmy! Come out here, you little blunderhead!

REMARKS.

a. Generally speaking, only those sentences, clauses, or phrases, should have the note of exclamation, which demand a fervid, passionate mode of delivery; or which commence with any of the interjections; with verbs in the imperative mood, adverbs, or prepositions, uttering a stern command or forcibly calling attention; with the adverbs how, what, unless they denote affirmation or inquiry; or with the case of address, when used in a solemn style, or emphasized by the use of the word O.

b. Between the interjections O and oh there exists an essential difference, which is frequently neglected even by some of our best writers. The former is properly prefixed to an expression in a direct address; but the latter ought never to be so employed. O should be used without the mark of exclamation immediately after it; but oh, sometimes with and sometimes without it, according to the construction and sense of the passage in which the word occurs. The following sentences will illustrate the difference spoken of, and the true mode of punctuation : —

1. The heavens and earth, O Lord! proclaim thy boundless power. 2. When, O my countrymen! will you begin to exert your vigor?

3. O blessed spirit, who art freed from earth! rejoice.

4. Oh! nothing is further from my thoughts than to deceive you. 5. Oh, what a glorious part you may act on the theatre of humanity! 6. Oh that all classes of society were both enlightened and virtuous! *

*TO THE TEACHER. The reasons for the mode of pointing adopted in these examples are assigned in "Treatise on English Punctuation," pp. 160-1.

c. Wherever interjections, or any other words indicative of deep emotion or fervid passion, are not meant to be significant in themselves, but to form part of a phrase, clause, or sentence, it is recommended that the mark of exclamation be put, not after each of these words, but only at the end of each expression; as, "Ah me!" "Alas, my noble boy! that thou shouldst die!" “All hail, ye patriots brave!”. "Rouse, ye Romans! rouse, ye slaves!"

Why are notes of exclamation inserted in the following examples? — Alas, poor Yorick ! - Alas for the man who has not learned to work! We shall be so happy! - Live, live, ye incomparable pair! Behold the daughter of Innocence! How peaceful is the grave! O Freedom! thou art not, as poets dream, a fair young girl. How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood!

All hail, thou noble land, our fathers' native soil!

Praise to the men for whose writings I am the better and wiser!
What! kill thy friend, who lent thee money, for asking thee for it!
The secret I implore: out with it! speak! discover! utter!
Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness!

Down, soothless insulter! I trust not the tale. — Ha, ha, ha!
Charge, Chester, charge! on, Stanley, on!

Out, out, Lucetta! Oh the great deep of suffering in every human breast!

Show how Remarks b and c apply to the punctuation of these sentences:—

O Providence! how many poor insects of thine are exposed to be trodden to death in each path!

This, O men of Athens! my duty prompted me to represent to you on this occasion.

Oh! you are wounded, my lord. — Oh! many a dream was in the ship an hour before her death.

Oh, bloodiest picture in the book of time! Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime.

Oh that men should put an enemy into their mouths to steal away their brains!

Alas for his poor family! - Alas that folly and falsehood should be so hard to grapple with!

Alas, poor creature! I will soon revenge this cruelty upon the author of it.

*TO THE TEACHER. The learner should be strongly impressed with the impropriety of inserting marks of exclamation in those parts of his composition where the form of his sentences or the nature of his conceptions will not permit their use. A mode of punctuation which is characterized by its simplicity will indirectly help him to avoid affectation and quackery in style.