Page:The king's English (IA kingsenglish00fowlrich).pdf/162

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
148
SYNTAX

She could not bear the sight of all these things that reminded her of Anthony and of her sin. Perhaps she should die soon; she felt very feeble.—Eliot.

Statement. I shall. Again the reporting word absent.

There will never perhaps be a time when every question between London and Washington shall be laid at rest.—Times.

This is not properly speaking reported speech. But the shall is accounted for by a sort of allusion to a supposed prophecy—every question shall one day be laid at rest. In that prophecy, shall would convey that the prophet gave his personal guarantee for it, and would come under Rule 2. This is not to be confused with the use of shall in indefinite clauses that will be noticed later.

Wrong.

The four began their descent, not knowing at what step they should meet death nor which of them should reach the shore alive.—F. M. Crawford.

Questions. At what step shall we meet? Which of us will reach? The first is accordingly right, the second wrong. The modern writer—who has been at the pains to use the strictly correct should in the first place rather than the now common would—has not seen, as Richardson did in the first of the right examples, that his two clauses are dissimilar.

I hope that our sympathy shall survive these little revolutions undiminished.—Stevenson.

Statement. Will survive. It is possible, however, that the original was thought of, or rather felt, as Our sympathy shall survive. But as the effect of that is to give the speaker's personal guarantee for the truth of the thing, it is clearly not a proper statement to make dependent on the doubtful word hope.

After mentioning the advance made in reforms of the military force of the country he [Lord Lansdowne] announced that the Government should not oppose the motion, readily availing themselves of Lord Wemyss's suggestion that...–Times.

Statement. We shall not, or the Government will not. Probably Lord Lansdowne said we, and that accounts for