2.  What they know by reading’, I know by experience’.

3.  I could honor thy courage’, but I detest thy crimes’.

4.  It is easier to forgive the weak’, who have injured us’, than the powerful’ whom we’ have injured.

5.  Homer was the greater genius’, Virgil the better artist’.

6.  The style of Dryden is capricious and varied’; that of Pope is cautious and uniform’.  Dryden obeys the emotions of his own mind’; Pope constrains his mind to his own rules of composition.’  Dryden is sometimes vehement and rapid’; Pope is always smooth, uniform, and gentle’.  Dryden’s page is a natural field, rising into inequalities, varied by exuberant vegetation’; Pope’s is a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe and leveled by the roller’.

7.  If the flights of Dryden are higher’, Pope continues longer on the wing’.  If the blaze of Dryden’s fire is brighter’, the heat of Pope’s is more regular and constant’.  Dryden often surpasses’ expectation, and Pope never falls below’ it.

Remark l.—­Words and members connected by or used disjunctively, generally express contrast or antithesis, and always receive opposite inflection.

EXAMPLES. (27)

1.  Shall we advance’, or retreat’?

2.  Do you seek wealth’, or power’?

3.  Is the great chain upheld by God’, or thee’?

4.  Shall we return to our allegiance while we may do so with safety and honor’, or shall we wait until the ax of the executioner is at our throats’?

5.  Shall we crown’ the author of these public calamities with garlands’, or shall we wrest’ from him his ill-deserved authority’ ?

Remark 2.—­When the antithesis is between affirmation and negation, the latter usually has the rising inflection, according to Rule V.

EXAMPLES. (27)

1.  You were paid to fight’ against Philip, not to rail’ at him.

2.  I said rationally’, not irrationally’.

3.  I did not say rationally’, but irrationally’.

4.  I said an elder’ soldier, not a better’.

5.  Let us retract while we can’, not when we must’.

Remark 3.—­The more emphatic member generally receives the falling inflection.

EXAMPLES. (27)

1.  A countenance more in sorrow’, than anger’.

2.  A countenance less in anger’, than sorrow’.

3.  You should show your courage by deeds’, rather than by words.

4.  If we can not remove’ pain, we may alleviate’ it.

OF SERIES. (28)

A series is a number of particulars immediately following one another in the same grammatical construction.

A commencing series is one which commences a sentence or clause.

EXAMPLE. (28)