is enjoyed by the type of man which sums up such a vast majority of earth's population to-day! The richly gifted, by the very nature of things, are isolated from their fellows. So mighty has the average man become that he possesses a power which means panic or progress in all the great realms which make up the age in which we live. And it is evident that this rising force is the real sovereign which is to rule the twentieth century as commander and dictator of the future destinies of mankind. Carlyle concludes his Past and Present with ringing words as he sees the great army of industry, and the gradual lifting of the vast central mass of mankind into power. With sturdy eloquence he exclaims: "This enormous, all-conquering, flame-crowned host is marching to subdue chaos and make this old world worthier of God and more fit for man."

William Harrisors

EDITORIAL DEPARTMENTS.

NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.

PROFESSOR DUGALD MACFADYEN, editor of the Temple Biographies Series, in his introduction to Dr. Edward Dowden's new life of Robert Browning, published by E. P. Dutton & Co., which is "a biography of the Poet's mind," writes:

Browning has become to many, in a measure which he could hardly have conceived possible himself, one of the authoritative interpreters of the spiritual factors in human life. His tonic optimism dissipates the gray atmosphere of materialism, which has obscured the sun-clad heights of life as effectively as a fog. To see life through Browning's eyes is to see it shot through and through with spiritual issues, with a background of eternal destiny, and to come appreciably nearer than the general consciousness of our time to seeing it steadily and seeing it whole. Those who prize his influence know how to value everything which throws light on the path by which he reached his resolute and confident outlook.

Because that statement is entirely true of Browning, as of no other modern poet, we have for years conceived it to be a high duty to assist in giving vogue to his robust and peremptory faith, his resolute and confident gospel, in comparison with the priceless value of which all criticisms of his eccentricities of style are so academic and trivial as not to concern mankind.

AN INCORRIGIBLE BLUNDER IN GRAMMAR.

FOURTEEN years ago the following appeared in a New York city

newspaper:

MISUSE OF THE PRONOUN "WHOM."

To the Editor of the Tribune.

SIR: How do you explain the fact that one of the most obvious violations of grammar is so frequently found in high quarters, even in stately reviews and newspapers that pride themselves on their correct English? Here are specimens:

In an article on marriage and divorce in a religious review a man "denies that he ever intended to marry the woman whom lawyers endeavored to prove was his first wife." Whom was. Her was not.

In the report of an accident a man is described as "searching for his daughter whom he thought might have been saved." Whom might. Her was not saved, you see.

In the investigation of a case of arson a man testifies that the house "had been purchased by Harry Baker, a man whom the State says has no existence." Him may have been dead.

A Long Branch report speaks of a clergyman "whom Christian scientists claim has shown a leaning toward their beliefs." Whom showed.

A letter from the revered object of a certain cult runs thus: "Dear Sir: I have not in my possession a picture such as you desire, but I will send your letter to a photographer in Washington whom I presume will furnish it to you." Whom will. But perhaps him did not write this sentence just as printed. If so let he look to the proofreader whom did it. So plain and inexcusable a mistake ought not to be so common. Will The Tribune help to correct it? St. John's Church, Brooklyn, July 4, 1890.

(The Tribune will, cheerfully.-ED.)

WILLIAM V. KELLEY.

A few days later the editor of the Tribune replied to a counter-critic and objector thus:

"W. A. L." writes to take exception to one of the several admirably selected examples of the misuse of the pronoun "whom," selected by Dr. Kelley and pointed out in a letter to The Tribune, recently published. "W. A. L." says: "In the first case, we think he is mistaken. Will the doctor please reconsider his statement, and look at another word in the sentence?" No, Dr. Kelley was not "mistaken." Why should he reconsider his statement? The sentence which he quotes reads: "The man denies that he ever intended to marry the woman whom lawyers endeavored to prove was his first wife." Whom could never be the subject of "was," if it lived till the blast of Gabriel's trumpet was sounded. Just punctuate after "woman" and "prove." Read it this way: "The man denies that he ever intended to marry the woman whom (lawyers endeavored to prove) was his first wife." Pretty bad, isn't it?

In spite of all corrections and protests this gross and glaring blunder in grammar mysteriously persists, undaunted and undiminished by criticism. It seems utterly incorrigible. Intelligence appears to be no protection against it, and the most finical purists often walk straight into its snare. Nobody is surprised when the New York Journal reports that "the man whom the police believe sent the blackmail letters to a wealthy druggist has been arraigned," for bad grammar may be expected of yellow journalism. Nor does any sense of wonder overcome us when the manager of the football team in an Eastern college sends out to principals of preparatory schools a request for "the names and data of any good athletes whom you know will be ready to enter college next September." We can even bear it, if not excuse it, when the business manager of a great review asks us to send him the names of a few of our friends whom we feel would be interested in his review. It might seem unfeeling to criticise a request so feelingly expressed. But it gives us a shock to find a stern reformer of abuses, a merciless censor of human

errors, infirmities, and infelicities, an icily proper pink of perfection, like the Springfield Republican, printing on August 24, 1903, this editorial paragraph:

The Humberts, the greatest swindlers of a century, get five years in a French prison; yet madame goes down with colors flying, repeating to the end that the Crawford millions do exist. M. Labori has furnished the only other feature of interest in the trial by showing that, as a lawyer, he could defend a supreme scoundrel, whom he knew to be guilty, with as much eloquence and zest as he could a Dreyfus, whom he had every reason to believe was innocent. Perhaps the dog-days did it. Even the loftiest critic is liable to nod in mid-August. And one does not expect to find in stately and scholarly reviews sentences resembling the invitations sent out by Chuck Connors, the "King of the Bowery Boys," the "Mayor of Chinatown," asking his unwashed friends to his annual ball at Tammany Hall; invitations which are fairly described as being "couched in carefully ungrammatical English." Yet in so brilliant a review as the International Quarterly, on page 251 of the issue of September, 1903, an article on Herman Grimm quotes Professor Grimm as saying of Goethe, "Without abdicating our intellectual independence, we may yet devote ourselves to him whom we feel has a legitimate right to our services." (Whom has a right! Why not write and punctuate it properly? Who, we feel, has a right.) Again, in the same great review, on page 234, December, 1903, Louis Lucipia, in an article on "The Paris Commune of 1871," quotes Jules Favre as saying, “I have heard men whom I thought were sane and intelligent declare that the best thing to do was to take their wives and children and let them all be killed." (Whom were!) We are reminded of a notice which a friend saw on the summit of the Rigi above Lake Lucerne, posted in the corridor of a hotel which always wakes its guests in time to see the sun rise, the literal translation of which is, "Messieurs and venerable voyagers are hereby advertised that when the sun him do rise a horn will be blowed." This is an exact rendering of French idiom, but is intolerable English. We wish "a horn" might "be blowed" announcing the rising of a day in the light of which a blunder which any schoolboy in the first grammar class should be able to avoid may disappear at least from the higher circles of literature and culture, and never be heard from any presumably educated pulpit. The misuse of "whom" for "who" is due partly to lack of clear thinking and careful attention, partly to a failure to punctuate properly. A notable correction of this misuse is seen in Mark viii, verses 27 and 29 (as also in the corresponding passage in

Luke ix, verses 18 and 20) as printed in the Revised Version of the Bible. The King James Version has it, "Whom do men say that I am?" and "Whom say ye that I am?" It is impossible to parse "whom" in these verses. There is no rule of grammar which can be stretched or twisted so as to justify or permit its use. There is no verb of which "whom" can be the object, nor any infinitive to which it can stand as subject. And the translators of the Revised Version did not need to be expert grammarians in order to be able to make the grammar respectable by rendering the verses, "Who do men say that I am?" and "Who say ye that I am?" Any graduate from a public school ought to be able to make so simple and necessary a correction. The "split infinitive," as it is called, which consists in inserting an adverb into the infinitive form where it does not belong, as in saying "to kindly request" instead of "kindly to request" or "to request kindly," is a far less grievous mistake, being only a question of the proper location and order of the words in a sentence, and not of rendering the sentence utterly unparsable.

While upon this subject we may admit a communication referring to another very common mistake:

SIR: The symposium of grammarians in The Tribune has been entertaining and instructive. I did not feel willing to intrude among the banqueters, but now that the symposium is at an end you might let me in, under the pretense of bringing in the apollinaris on a waiter.

Can anyone explain the universal practice of mislocating in a sentence the word "only"? "I only paid a dollar," "He only slept an hour," "They only heard it once." The Saturday Globe before me says: "Dead! and you and I were only talking of him last night!"-apparently intimating that their mere talk could not possibly have killed him. In another paper this catches my eye: "One site which cost $10,000 was only purchased last June;" that it was not paid for, or possessed, but merely purchased. Any number of similar sentences can be clipped from a pile of newspapers. In current literature the error is very common. Frederick Anstey says in Tariah, which I am reading at the moment, "She only came back last night," and so anyone who asserts that she went away again is mistaken. In fact, this queer mode of expression has imbedded itself firmly in our common speech. Very few persons on the platform or in conversation put the word "only" where it properly belongs. Why? How came the language by this bad sprain? S. H. MEAD.

Eustis, Fla.

(Undoubtedly this long-suffering word is often misplaced. It should be as near as possible to the word or words it qualifies. In the first example given the word is so placed as to indicate that the speaker alone paid a dollar; but if the meaning be, as it doubtless is, that only a dollar was paid, the sentence should read, "I paid only a dollar." The same remarks apply to the second, which should read, "They heard it only once;" the third should read, "Only last night;" the fourth, "Was purchased only last June;" and Mr. Anstey should have said that "She came back only last night," unless he meant that she came alone, or that she did nothing else besides coming.-ED.)