COMPARATIVE AND SUPERLATIVE FORMS.

 

Use of the comparative degree.

 

428. The comparative degree of the adjective (or adverb) is used when we wish to compare two objects or sets of objects, or one object with a class of objects, to express a higher degree of quality; as,—

 

Which is the better able to defend himself,—a strong man with nothing but his fists, or a paralytic cripple encumbered with a sword which he cannot lift?—Macaulay.

Of two such lessons, why forget

The nobler and the manlier one?

—Byron.

 

We may well doubt which has the stronger claim to civilization, the victor or the vanquished.—Prescott.

 

A braver ne'er to battle rode.—Scott.

 

He is taller, by almost the breadth of my nail, than any of his court.—Swift.

Other after the comparative form.

 

429. When an object is compared with the class to which it belongs, it is regularly excluded from that class by the word other; if not, the object would really be compared with itself: thus,—

 

The character of Lady Castlewood has required more delicacy in its manipulation than perhaps any other which Thackeray has drawn.—Trollope.

 

I used to watch this patriarchal personage with livelier curiosity than any other form of humanity.—Hawthorne.

 

Exercise.

 

See if the word other should be inserted in the following sentences:—

 

1. There was no man who could make a more graceful bow than Mr. Henry.—Wirt.

 

2. I am concerned to see that Mr. Gary, to whom Dante owes more than ever poet owed to translator, has sanctioned, etc.—Macaulay.

 

3. There is no country in which wealth is so sensible of its obligations as our own.—Lowell.

 

4. This is more sincerely done in the Scandinavian than in any mythology I know.—Carlyle.

 

5. In "Thaddeus of Warsaw" there is more crying than in any novel I remember to have read.—Thackeray.

 

6. The heroes of another writer [Cooper] are quite the equals of Scott's men; perhaps Leather-stocking is better than anyone in "Scott's lot."—Id.

 

Use of the superlative degree.

 

430. The superlative degree of the adjective (or adverb) is used regularly in comparing more than two things, but is also frequently used in comparing only two things.

 

Examples of superlative with several objects:—

 

It is a case of which the simplest statement is the strongest.—Macaulay.

 

Even Dodd himself, who was one of the greatest humbugs who ever lived, would not have had the face.—Thackeray.

 

To the man who plays well, the highest stakes are paid.—Huxley.

 

Superlative with two objects.

 

Compare the first three sentences in Sec. 428 with the following:—

 

Which do you love best to behold, the lamb or the lion? —Thackeray.

 

Which of these methods has the best effect? Both of them are the same to the sense, and differ only in form.—Dr Blair.

 

Rip was one of those ... who eat white bread or brown, whichever can be got easiest.—Irving.

 

It is hard to say whether the man of wisdom or the man of folly contributed most to the amusement of the party.—Scott.

 

There was an interval of three years between Mary and Anne. The eldest, Mary, was like the Stuarts—the younger was a fair English child.—Mrs. Oliphant.

 

Of the two great parties which at this hour almost share the nation between them, I should say that one has the best cause, and the other contains the best men.—Emerson.

 

In all disputes between States, though the strongest is nearly always mainly in the wrong, the weaker is often so in a minor degree.—Ruskin.

 

She thought him and Olivia extremely of a size, and would bid both to stand up to see which was the tallest.—Goldsmith.

 

These two properties seem essential to wit, more particularly the last of them.—Addison.

 

"Ha, ha, ha!" roared Goodman Brown when the wind laughed at him. "Let us see which will laugh loudest."—Hawthorne.

 

Double comparative and superlative.

 

431. In Shakespeare's time it was quite common to use a double comparative and superlative by using more or most before the word already having -er or -est. Examples from Shakespeare are,—

 

How much more elder art thou than thy looks!—Merchant of Venice.

 

Nor that I am more better than Prospero.—Tempest.

 

Come you more nearer.—Hamlet.

 

With the most boldest and best hearts of Rome.—J. Cæsar.

 

Also from the same period,—

 

Imitating the manner of the most ancientest and finest Grecians.—Ben Jonson.

 

After the most straitest sect of our religion.—Bible, 1611.

 

Such expressions are now heard only in vulgar English. The following examples are used purposely, to represent the characters as ignorant persons:—

 

The artful saddler persuaded the young traveler to look at "the most convenientest and handsomest saddle that ever was seen."—Bulwer.

 

"There's nothing comes out but the most lowest stuff in nature; not a bit of high life among them."—Goldsmith.

 

THREE FIRST OR FIRST THREE?

 

432. As to these two expressions, over which a little war has so long been buzzing, we think it not necessary to say more than that both are in good use; not only so in popular speech, but in literary English. Instances of both are given below.

 

The meaning intended is the same, and the reader gets the same idea from both: hence there is properly a perfect liberty in the use of either or both.

First three, etc.

 

For Carlyle, and Secretary Walsingham also, have been helping them heart and soul for the last two years.—Kingsley.

 

The delay in the first three lines, and conceit in the last, jar upon us constantly.—Ruskin.

 

The last dozen miles before you reach the suburbs.—De Quincey.

 

Mankind for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw.—Lamb.

 

The first twenty numbers were expressed by a corresponding number of dots. The first five had specific names.—Prescott.

Three first, etc.

 

These are the three first needs of civilized life.—Ruskin.

 

He has already finished the three first sticks of it.—Addison.

 

In my two last you had so much of Lismahago that I suppose you are glad he is gone.—Smollett.

 

I have not numbered the lines except of the four first books. —Cowper.

 

The seven first centuries were filled with a succession of triumphs.—Gibbon.

 

ARTICLES.

 

Definite article.

 

433. The definite article is repeated before each of two modifiers of the same noun, when the purpose is to call attention to the noun expressed and the one understood. In such a case two or more separate objects are usually indicated by the separation of the modifiers. Examples of this construction are,—

With a singular noun.

 

The merit of the Barb, the Spanish, and the English breed is derived from a mixture of Arabian blood.—Gibbon.

 

The righteous man is distinguished from the unrighteous by his desire and hope of justice.—Ruskin.

 

He seemed deficient in sympathy for concrete human things either on the sunny or the stormy side.—Carlyle.

 

It is difficult to imagine a greater contrast than that between the first and the second part of the volume.—The Nation, No. 1508.

With a plural noun.

 

There was also a fundamental difference of opinion as to whether the earliest cleavage was between the Northern and the Southern languages.—Taylor, Origin of the Aryans.

 

434. The same repetition of the article is sometimes found before nouns alone, to distinguish clearly, or to emphasize the meaning; as,—

 

In every line of the Philip and the Saul, the greatest poems, I think, of the eighteenth century.—Macaulay.

 

He is master of the two-fold Logos, the thought and the word, distinct, but inseparable from each other.—Newman.

 

The flowers, and the presents, and the trunks and bonnet boxes ... having been arranged, the hour of parting came.—Thackeray.

The not repeated. One object and several modifiers, with a singular noun.

 

435. Frequently, however, the article is not repeated before each of two or more adjectives, as in Sec. 433, but is used with one only; as,—

 

Or fanciest thou the red and yellow Clothes-screen yonder is but of To-day, without a Yesterday or a To-morrow?—Carlyle.

 

The lofty, melodious, and flexible language.—Scott.

 

The fairest and most loving wife in Greece.—Tennyson.

Meaning same as in Sec. 433, with a plural noun.

 

Neither can there be a much greater resemblance between the ancient and modern general views of the town.—Halliwell-phillipps.

 

At Talavera the English and French troops for a moment suspended their conflict.—Macaulay.

 

The Crusades brought to the rising commonwealths of the Adriatic and Tyrrhene seas a large increase of wealth.—Id.

 

Here the youth of both sexes, of the higher and middling orders, were placed at a very tender age.—Prescott.

Indefinite article.

 

436. The indefinite article is used, like the definite article, to limit two or more modified nouns, only one of which is expressed. The article is repeated for the purpose of separating or emphasizing the modified nouns. Examples of this use are,—

 

We shall live a better and a higher and a nobler life.—Beecher.

 

The difference between the products of a well-disciplined and those of an uncultivated understanding is often and admirably exhibited by our great dramatist.—S. T. Coleridge.

 

Let us suppose that the pillars succeed each other, a round and a square one alternately.—Burke.

 

As if the difference between an accurate and an inaccurate statement was not worth the trouble of looking into the most common book of reference.—Macaulay.

 

To every room there was an open and a secret passage.—Johnson.

 

Notice that in the above sentences (except the first) the noun expressed is in contrast with the modified noun omitted.

 

One article with several adjectives.

 

437. Usually the article is not repeated when the several adjectives unite in describing one and the same noun. In the sentences of Secs. 433 and 436, one noun is expressed; yet the same word understood with the other adjectives has a different meaning (except in the first sentence of Sec. 436). But in the following sentences, as in the first three of Sec. 435, the adjectives assist each other in describing the same noun. It is easy to see the difference between the expressions "a red-and-white geranium," and "a red and a white geranium."

 

Examples of several adjectives describing the same object:—

 

To inspire us with a free and quiet mind.—B. Jonson.

 

Here and there a desolate and uninhabited house.—Dickens.

 

James was declared a mortal and bloody enemy.—Macaulay.

So wert thou born into a tuneful strain,

An early, rich, and inexhausted vein.

—Dryden.

For rhetorical effect.

 

438. The indefinite article (compare Sec. 434) is used to lend special emphasis, interest, or clearness to each of several nouns; as,—

 

James was declared a mortal and bloody enemy, a tyrant, a murderer, and a usurper.—Macaulay.

 

Thou hast spoken as a patriot and a Christian.—Bulwer.

 

He saw him in his mind's eye, a collegian, a parliament man—a Baronet perhaps.—Thackeray.

 

VERBS.