OBS. 7.—­The prepositions have, from their own nature, or from custom, such an adaptation to particular terms and relations, that they can seldom be used one for an other without manifest impropriety.  Example of error:  “Proper seasons should be allotted for retirement.”—­Murray’s Key, p. 173.  We do not say “allotted for,” but “allotted to:”  hence for is either wrong in itself or misplaced.  Such errors always vex an intelligent reader.  He sees the terms mismatched, the intended connection doubtful, the sense obscured, and wishes the author could have valued his own meaning enough to have made it intelligible;—­that is, (to speak technically,) enough to have made it a certain clew to his syntax.  We can neither parse nor correct what we do not understand.  Did the writer mean, “Proper seasons should be allotted to retirement?”—­or, “Proper seasons for retirement should be allotted?”—­or, “Seasons proper for retirement should be alloted?” [sic—­KTH] Every expression is incorrigibly bad, the meaning of which cannot be known.  Expression?  Nay, expression it is not, but only a mock utterance or an abortive attempt at expression.

OBS. 8.—­Harris observes, in substance, though in other words, that almost all the prepositions were originally formed to denote relations of place; that this class of relations is primary, being that which natural bodies maintain at all times one to an other; that in the continuity of place these bodies form the universe, or visible whole; that we have some prepositions to denote the contiguous relation of bodies, and others for the detached relation; and that both have, by degrees, been extended from local relations, to the relations of subjects incorporeal.  He appears also to assume, that, in such examples as the following,—­“Caius walketh with a staff; “—­“The statue stood upon a pedestal;”—­“The river ran over a sand;”—­“He is going to Turkey;”—­“The sun is risen above the hills;”—­“These figs came from Turkey;”—­the antecedent term of the relation is not the verb, but the noun or pronoun before it.  See Hermes, pp. 266 and 267.  Now the true antecedent is, unquestionably, that word which, in the order of the sense, the preposition should immediately follow:  and a verb, a participle, or an adjective, may sustain this relation, just as well as a substantive. “The man spoke of colour,” does not mean, “The man of colour spoke;” nor does, “The member from Delaware replied,” mean, “The member replied from Delaware”