An English Grammar Part 43

(_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 G.o.d 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!

15. "Oh, then, my dear madam," cried he, "tell me where I may find my poor, ruined, but repentant child."

16. That sheaf of darts, will it not fall unbound, Except, disrobed of thy vain earthly vaunt, Thou bring it to be blessed where saints and angels haunt?

17. Forget thyself to marble, till With a sad leaden downward cast Thou fix them on the earth as fast.

18. He, as though an instrument, Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls, That they might answer him.

19. From the moss violets and jonquils peep, And dart their arrowy odor through the brain, Till you might faint with that delicious pain.

20. That a man parade his doubt, and get to imagine that debating and logic is the triumph and true work of what intellect he has; alas! this is as if you should overturn the tree.

21. The fat earth feed thy branchy root That under deeply strikes!

The northern morning o'er thee shoot, High up in silver spikes!

22. Though abyss open under abyss, and opinion displace opinion, all are at last contained in the Eternal cause.

23. G.o.d send Rome one such other sight!

24. "Mr. Marshall," continued Old Morgan, "see that no one mentions the United States to the prisoner."

25. If there is only one woman in the nation who claims the right to vote, she ought to have it.

26. Though he were dumb, it would speak.

27. Meantime, whatever she did,--whether it were in display of her own matchless talents, or whether it were as one member of a general party,--nothing could exceed the amiable, kind, and una.s.suming deportment of Mrs. Siddons.

28. It makes a great difference to the force of any sentence whether there be a man behind it or no.

(_b_) Find sentences with five verbs in the indicative mood, five in the subjunctive, five in the imperative.

TENSE.

[Sidenote: _Definition._]

233. _Tense_ means _time_. The tense of a verb is the form or use indicating the time of an action or being.

[Sidenote: _Tenses in English._]

Old English had only two tenses,--the present tense, which represented present and future time; and the past tense. We still use the present for the future in such expressions as, "I _go_ away to-morrow;" "If he _comes_, tell him to wait."

But English of the present day not only has a tense for each of the natural time divisions,--present, past, and future,--but has other tenses to correspond with those of highly inflected languages, such as Latin and Greek.

The distinct inflections are found only in the present and past tenses, however: the others are compounds of verbal forms with various helping verbs, called auxiliaries; such as _be_, _have_, _shall_, _will_.

[Sidenote: _The tenses in detail._]

234. Action or being may be represented as occurring in present, past, or future time, by means of the present, the past, and the future tense. It may also be represented as _finished_ in present or past or future time by means of the present perfect, past perfect, and future perfect tenses.

Not only is this so: there are what are called definite forms of these tenses, showing more exactly the time of the action or being.

These make the English speech even more exact than other languages, as will be shown later on, in the conjugations.

PERSON AND NUMBER.

235. The English verb has never had full inflections for number and person, as the cla.s.sical languages have.

When the older p.r.o.noun _thou_ was in use, there was a form of the verb to correspond to it, or agree with it, as, "Thou walk_est_," present; "Thou walked_st_," past; also, in the third person singular, a form ending in -_eth_, as, "It is not in man that walk_eth_, to direct his steps."

But in ordinary English of the present day there is practically only one ending for person and number. This is the third person, singular number; as, "He walk_s_;" and this only in the present tense indicative. This is important in questions of agreement when we come to syntax.

CONJUGATION.

[Sidenote: _Definition._]