Pretty work the elders make of explaining it! They talk about style, character-drawing, the "epic" of pioneer life, and they attribute to this most popular yarn-spinner literary virtues no more appropriate to him than to the graven images of Chingachgook that used to stand before the tobacco shops. Style? His style is one of the obstacles that the story plows through, like Bumppo shouldering through underbrush. Listen to this! [A quotation from Cooper follows.]-John Macy, The Spirit of American Literature, p. 37.

May it not be so in this case? Consider! We have just reversed our traditional Eastern policy to accommodate Japan; we have acknowledged the rightfulness of her claim to special privileges in China, without consulting China and against China's protest; surely Japan cannot be ungrateful for the one great concession which she has sought in vain for years.-North American Review, January, 1918.

In the two passages the exclamatory sentences are useful for variation of tone and emphasis.

2. Infrequently as an interior structural mark for compounding, for series, and for the emphatic pointing of preliminary or parenthetical matter, including vocatives. The following sentence has specimens of exclamation marks for both main-clause breaks and emphatic vocatives.

"Boy!" said the famous master, James Boyer, to little Samuel Coleridge when he was crying, the first day of his return after the holidays, "Boy! the school is your father! Boy! the school is your mother! Boy! the school is your brother! the school is your sister! the school is your first cousin, and your second cousin, and all the rest of your relations! Let's have no more crying."-Percy H. Boynton, London in English Literature, p. 207.

But this arrangement is exceptional. Much oftener the exclamation mark is saved for the end of the sentence, or else the successive statements are pointed as sentences.

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Where the exclamation mark belonging to a quotation comes at a clause break, it may serve also as a compounding point.

Hanky for a time continued to foam at the mouth and roar out, "Tear him to pieces! burn him alive!" but when he saw that there was no further hope of getting the people to obey him, he collapsed on to a seat in his pulpit, mopped his bald head, and consoled himself with a great pinch of a powder which corresponds very closely to our own snuff.-Samuel Butler, Erewhon Revisited, p. 211.

The pointing of preliminary matter with the exclamation mark is exceptional. Even such expressions as Oh and Alas do not necessarily take the exclamation mark. In the great majority of cases the exclamation mark occurs at the end of a quotation or sentence. In this paragraph from A Sheaf, by John Galsworthy (p. 220), the exclamatory vocatives are treated as sentences:

Great and touching comrade! Clear, invincible France! Today, in your grave chivalry, you were never so high, so desirable, so true to yourself and to Humanity!

The use of the exclamation point at the end of parenthetical matter is the most common use within the sentence save for the pointing of quoted matter.

The contribution, as it was so politely termed-war having need of so many euphemisms!—was subsequently reduced to fortyfive million francs.-Brand Whitlock, "Belgium under the German Heel," in Everybody's Magazine for June, 1918.

3. The exclamation mark is sometimes used between curves to mark an expression as unusual or ironical, or is interpolated within brackets (less properly within curves)

as a commentary on quoted matter. The exclamation mark in the first sentence following is an unsuccessful piece of irony.

His prudent and able (!) management saved only the remnants from destruction.

Three volumes of unimpeachable poetry [!] have been written in America: "Leaves of Grass," the thin volume of Poe, and the poetry of Sidney Lanier.-John Macy, The Spirit of American Literature, p. 309.

The exclamation mark is shown by the brackets to be an interpolation.

THE EXCLAMATION MARK WITH OTHER POINTS

The exclamation mark may occur with ellipsis periods or asterisks, with suspension periods, with parenthetical points (dashes, curves, brackets), sometimes with the dash; almost never with colon, semicolon, or comma. Ellipsis periods, suspension periods, or the dash may precede or follow according to circumstances. With parenthetical points the exclamation mark precedes if intended to point the parenthesis, but follows if belonging to a group containing the parenthesis. With quote marks the exclamation point precedes or follows according to the meaning, preceding the quote if the quotation is exclamatory. The principles of order are the same as for the question mark.

IV. THE COLON

The colon is usually an equality mark with emphasis mainly on the explanation, quotation, or other following matter. Though still used by many writers as a compounding point no more anticipatory than the semicolon, it is

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most often a mark of anticipation introducing an extract, a list, or matter of any sort for which definite preparation has been made. The colon is ordinarily the most formal of all points, but varies in effect with the wording. For this reason it is sometimes light, though usually emphatic.

The compounding colon is used by so few American writers as to be in some danger of extinction. But the American minority is of respectable strength, and is reinforced by the example of British writers, who in general are less restricted by rules and journalistic conventions than their American contemporaries. The question whether to use the compounding colon is a question of utility rather than correctness. If the colon is useful for clearness and good movement, there is good reason and authority for using it. Save for effects on movement and emphasis, with incidental effects in the direction of variety, there is no function of the compounding colon which cannot be performed by one of the other points; but some first-rate writers appear to consider the exceptions important.

The colon in text matter has the following uses:

1. As an anticipatory point, especially though not always after formally introductory wording. The matter so introduced may be a quotation, a list, an appositive or appositive series, a salutation (Dear Sir or the like), or other matter. The nearest equivalent of the colon in this use is the dash. The anticipatory colon may be used at the end of a paragraph to suspend attention upon a following paragraph or series.

The colon may replace the period at the end of a sentence introducing the topic of a passage. As the colon so used is strongly suspensive, the presumption is in favor of the period. In the following case the colon-pointed words introduce a passage of five sentences with two paragraph breaks,

Here is a case in point: An underwear house in New York sold a bill of goods to a storekeeper in Milan. He ordered from sample and the firm's agent demanded that the draft be attached to the bill of lading. The buyer refused to agree to these terms, on the ground that the shipment might not be up to the sample. "But you know our name," said the salesman.

"Then I suggest that you find out something about mine for a change!" said the indignant Italian as he canceled the order.Isaac F. Marcosson, in the Saturday Evening Post for March 9, 1918, p. 101.

The expression Here is a case in point might end with a period; it is no more definitely introductory than many ordinary topical sentences. For example, the first three sentences of a paragraph on page 244 of Mr. De Vinne's Correct Composition are pointed as follows, the introductory group taking the period.

Two systems of punctuation are in use. One may be called the close or stiff, and the other the open or easy system. For all ordinary descriptive writing the open or easy system, which teaches that points be used sparingly, is in most favor, but the close or stiff system cannot be discarded.

According to both logic and the weight of good usage, the period is preferable when the matter introduced is developed through several sentences. If the development is completed within a single sentence, the colon has more justification.

An introductory clause with colon is sometimes followed in the same paragraph by a small letter, sometimes by a capital. There is no fixed rule. The general custom of compound sentences suggests a small letter unless the following word would be capitalized without regard to the clause break. If the colon suspends a series of sentences, the first sentence naturally begins with a capital. But