"Let me quote from Rossetti's Life of Keats,” he said. "Mr. Rossetti writes as follows:

"To one of these phrases a few words of comment may be given. That axiom which concludes the "Ode on a Grecian Urn”—

"""Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know," is perhaps the most important contribution to thought which the poetry of Keats contains: it pairs with and transcends

6 66

"""A thing of beauty is a joy forever."'

"And now I shall conclude my first point," he continued, "by remarking that . . ."

(Be certain that you understand just why the writer of that passage used each one of the quotation marks, bearing in mind that "quoted prose matter which is broken up into paragraphs should have the quotation marks repeated at the beginning of each paragraph." Then, reading aloud, make another understand as clearly as you do, yourself.)

CHAPTER XIII

REVIEW EXERCISES IN PUNCTUATION

Every selection in this chapter illustrates one or more phases of the problem of the interpretation of punctuation. They are rich in suggestion and will amply repay carefullest study. Every extract should

be read aloud.

The importance of correctly interpreting the punctuation marks warrants us in studying a great many passages, but your interest is more likely to grow than to wane as you find in each illustration a vital, gripping problem that taxes your powers of logic and interpretation. For you see that the punctuation affects Grouping, Sequence, Motive, Central Idea— all the elements entering into the study of the printed page.

I tell thee now, and I shall keep my word,-
If e'er again I find thee railing on,

As now thou dost, then let Ulysses wear
His head no longer, let me not be called

The father of Telemachus, if I

Shall fail to seize thee, and to strip thee bare
Of cloak and tunic, and whatever else
Covers thy carcass, and to send thee forth,
Howling, to air swift barks upon the shore,
Scourged from the council with a storm of blows.
-Iliad (Bryant's translation).

(The first time you read this speech of Ulysses you are likely to interpret it as meaning that if ever again he hears the person railing he, Ulysses, will wear his head no longer. Study the commas carefully, and you will see that the entire speech, beginning with the second line, points forward continually to the end.)

Why, don't you understand what war is?

(The above is the opening line of a poem recently published. Note what a difference in the vocal expression the absence of the comma would make.)

Death is here, and death is there,
Death is busy everywhere.

All around, within, beneath,

Above, is death; and we are death.

-SHELLEY.

Cassio. Dost thou hear, my honest friend?

Clown. No, I hear not your honest friend. I hear

you.

-Othello, III, ii.

A woman will, or won't, depend on 't.

And more nearly, dying thus, resemble thee.

I have another engagement, in Detroit, the same day

When will you marry, John?

Go, for they call you, shepherd, from the hill.

We are not what we think we are;

But what we think, we are.

The turkey strutted about the yard; two hours after, his head was cut off.

And with him many of thy people, and knights
Once thine, whom thou hast loved, but grosser grown
Than heathen, spitting at their vows and thee.

(It is Sir Bedivere who is telling Arthur that it is Modred who leads the revolt against him, and that many of his former knights have joined the revolt. Parse "spitting.")

Then answer'd Mary, "This shall never be,
That thou shouldst take my trouble on thyself:
And, now I think, he shall not have the boy,
For he will teach him hardness, and to slight
His mother."

-TENNYSON: Dora.

(Mary is the wife of William, who has married her against his father's wishes. After William dies Dora tries to reconcile William's father and Mary. But the father is angry, telling Dora that he will take the young child and bring him up but that he never wants to see Dora's face again. It is after Dora returns to Mary, having left the child with its grandfather, that Mary uses the words printed above. The interesting part of the extract is in the third line.)

Desdemona.

Do not doubt, Cassio,

But I will have my lord and you again

As friendly as you were.

-Othello, III, iii.

What do you think! I will shave you for nothing and give you a drink.

What! do you think I will shave you for nothing and give you a drink?

(The first of the two preceding lines was painted on a sign outside a barber shop. But after customers had been shaved they were apologetically told that the sign in front had been wrongly punctuated; that it should have read as it is printed in the second sentence.)

You stole the money, and you have woven a plot to lay the sin at my door. But you may prosper, for all that: there is no just God, that governs the earth righteously, but a God of lies, that bears witness against the innocent.-ELIOT: Silas Marner.

(George Eliot knew how to punctuate and you must not destroy her meaning by overlooking certain significant commas in the sentence you have just been reading.)

For we are all, like swimmers in the sea,
Poised on the top of a huge wave of fate,
Which hangs uncertain to which side to fall.
ARNOLD: Sohrab and Rustum.

(Are we all like swimmers in the sea?)

But when the next sun brake from underground,
Then, these two brethren slowly with bent brows
Accompanying, the sad chariot-bier

Past like a shadow thro' the field, that shone
Full-summer, to that stream whereon the barge,
Pall'd all its length in blackest samite, lay.
There sat the lifelong creature of the house,
Loyal, the dumb old servitor, on deck,
Winking his eyes, and twisted all his face.

-TENNYSON: Lancelot and Elaine.