1. Whoever has flattered his friend successfully must at once
     think himself a knave, and his friend a fool.

     2.  It is no proof of a man’s understanding, to be able to affirm
     whatever he pleases.

     3.  They sit in a chair or sprawl with children on the floor, or
     stand on their head, or what else soever, in a new and
     original way.

     4. Whoso is heroic will always find crises to try his edge.

     5.  Only itself can inspire whom it will.

     6.  God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. 
     Take which you please,—­you cannot have both.

     7.  Do what we can, summer will have its flies.

[Sidenote:  Meaning and use.]

122.  The fitness of the term indefinite here cannot be shown better than by examining the following sentences:—­

     1.  There is something so overruling in whatever inspires us
     with awe, in all things which belong ever so remotely to
     terror, that nothing else can stand in their presence.—­BURKE.

     2.  Death is there associated, not with everything that is most
     endearing in social and domestic charities, but with whatever
     is darkest in human nature and in human destiny.—­MACAULAY.

It is clear that in 1, whatever is equivalent to all things which, and in 2, to everything that; no certain antecedent, no particular thing, being referred to.  So with the other indefinites.

[Sidenote:  What simple relative and what indefinite relative.]

123.  The above helps us to discriminate between what as a simple and what as an indefinite relative.

As shown in Sec. 120, the simple relative what is equivalent to that which or the thing which,—­some particular thing; as shown by the last sentence in Sec. 121, what means anything that, everything that (or everything which).  The difference must be seen by the meaning of the sentence, as what hardly ever has an antecedent.

The examples in sentences 5 and 6, Sec. 121, show that who and which have no antecedent expressed, but mean any one whom, either one that, etc.

OTHER WORDS USED AS RELATIVES.

[Sidenote:  But and as.]

124.  Two words, but and as, are used with the force of relative pronouns in some expressions; for example,—­

     1.  There is not a leaf rotting on the highway but has force in
     it:  how else could it rot?—­CARLYLE.

     2.  This, amongst such other troubles as most men meet with in
     this life, has been my heaviest affliction.—­DE QUINCEY.