because they indicate the transition from one division to the next.
Besides those mentioned in Exercise 135, we may use a numeral
connection, as, _in the first place_, _in the second place_; or an
expression much like a numeral, as, _furthermore_, _in the next place_;
or an expression showing that an adverse idea is to be presented, as,
_on the other hand_, _however_, _in spite of this_, _nevertheless_. But
whatever you do, choose the right link, especially if you use such a one
as _possibly_, _probably_, _perhaps_, _certainly_, _surely_. Use the one
that expresses your idea exactly. Have none rather than the wrong one.
In the following the first and second paragraphs are connected according
to (1) above; the second and third are connected according to (3) above.
There comes to every prosperous man a time when he
wishes to know the best way of securing a steady
income from his accumulated savings without the burden
of responsibility of managing some property in order
to gain his income. The merchant may not wish to put
back into the business all the earnings he gets from
it, and yet he wishes to prepare for his old age. The
farmer may wish to give up active work, but he
realizes how soon his broad acres may deteriorate
through soil-robbery when he rents his property "on
shares." With such a problem before him the thoughtful
man makes an effort to _learn_ how to act to secure a
good _income_ all his life.
One of the first things he _learns_, if he studies the
situation carefully, is that there is a wide
difference between an _income_ derived from one's
business ability, such as the profit secured from
running a store, factory, jobbing house, or farm, and
the income which is derived as the result of money
"working" by itself. In the first case, a man must of
necessity keep up his business responsibilities; in
the other, once he has selected a safe investment,
practically all he has to do is to collect his income
from time to time as it falls due. There is in the
latter no depreciation of land, buildings, machinery,
or the like; no insurance payments to worry about; no
crop failures to consider.
_It is evident, then_, that if one wishes to put
surplus money away--say the proceeds from the sale of
a business or a farm--and get a steady income from it
without bother or worry, the most important thing to
consider is how to go about it to select something
which, once purchased, will turn out to be a safe
investment.
=Exercise 214=
In the following paragraphs taken from Robert Louis Stevenson's _The
Philosophy of Nomenclature_, point out all the transition words that
join (1) sentence to sentence, and (2) paragraph to paragraph:
To begin, then: the influence of our name makes itself
felt from the very cradle. As a schoolboy I remember
the pride with which I hailed Robin Hood, Robert
Bruce, and Robert le Diable as my name-fellows; and
the feeling of sore disappointment that fell on my
heart when I found a freebooter or a general who did
not share with me a single one of my numerous
_praenomina_. Look at the delight with which two
children find they have the same name. They are
friends from that moment forth; they have a bond of
union stronger than exchange of nuts and sweetmeats.
This feeling, I own, wears off in later life. Our
names lose their freshness and interest, become trite
and indifferent. But this, dear reader, is merely one
of the sad effects of those "shades of the prison
house" which come gradually betwixt us and nature with
advancing years; it affords no weapon against the
philosophy of names.
In after life, although we fail to trace its working,
that name which careless godfathers lightly applied to
your unconscious infancy will have been moulding your
character and influencing with irresistible power the
whole course of your earthly fortunes. But the last
name is no whit less important as a condition of
success. Family names, we must recollect, are but
inherited nicknames; and if the _sobriquet_ were
applicable to the ancestor, it is most likely
applicable to the descendant also. You would not
expect to find Mr. M'Phun acting as a mute or Mr.
M'Lumpha excelling as a professor of dancing.
Therefore, in what follows, we shall consider names,
independent of whether they are first or last. And to
begin with, look what a pull _Cromwell_ had over
_Pym_--the one name full of a resonant imperialism,
the other mean, pettifogging, and unheroic to a
degree. Who would expect eloquence from _Pym_--who
would read poems by _Pym_--who would bow to the
opinions of _Pym_? He might have been a dentist, but
he should never have aspired to be a statesman. I can
only wonder that he succeeded as he did. Pym and
Habakkuk stand first upon the roll of men who have
triumphed, by sheer force of genius, over the most
unfavorable appellations. But even these have
suffered; and, had they been more fitly named, the one
might have been Lord Protector and the other have
shared the laurels with Isaiah. In this matter we must
not forget that all our great poets have borne great
names. Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope,
Wordsworth, Shelley--what a constellation of lordly
words! Not a single commonplace name among them--not a
Brown, not a Jones, not a Robinson; they are all names
that one would stop and look at on a door-plate. Now,
imagine if _Pepys_ had tried to clamber somehow into
the enclosure of poetry, what a blot would that name
have made upon the list! The thing is impossible. In
the first place, a certain natural consciousness that
men have would have held him down to the level of his
name, would have prevented him from rising above the
Pepsine standard, and so haply withheld him altogether
from attempting verse. Next, the booksellers would
refuse to publish, and the world to read them, on the
mere evidence of the fatal appellation. And now,
before I close this section, I must say one word as to
_punnable_ names, names that stand alone, that have a
significance and life apart from him that bears them.
These are the bitterest of all. One friend of mine
goes bowed and humbled through life under the weight
of this misfortune; for it is an awful thing when a
man's name is a joke, when he cannot be mentioned
without exciting merriment, and when even the
intimation of his death bids fair to carry laughter
into many a home.
So much for people who are badly named. Now for people
who are _too_ well named, who go topheavy from the
font, who are baptized into a false position, and who
find themselves beginning life eclipsed under the fame
of some of the great ones of the past. A man, for
instance, called William Shakespeare could never dare
to write plays. He is thrown into too humbling an
apposition with the author of _Hamlet_. His own name
coming after is such an anti-climax. "The plays of
William Shakespeare?" says the reader--"O no! The
plays of William Shakespeare Cockerill," and he throws
the book aside. In wise pursuance of such views, Mr.
John Milton Hengler, who not long since delighted us
in this favored town, has never attempted to write an
epic, but has chosen a new path and has excelled upon
the tight-rope. A marked example of triumph over this
is the case of Mr. Dante Gabriel Rosetti. On the face
of the matter, I should have advised him to imitate
the pleasing modesty of the last-named gentleman, and
confine his ambition to the sawdust. But Mr. Rosetti
has triumphed. He has even dared to translate from his
mighty name-father; and the voice of fame supports him
in his boldness.
=Exercise 215=
Turn back to Exercise 210, 1. How are the different paragraphs that you
have made connected?