Page:The king's English (IA kingsenglish00fowlrich).pdf/66

slang is the great corrupting matter; it is perishable itself, and infects what is round it—the catchwords that delight one generation stink in the nostrils of the next; individual, which almost made the fortune of many a Victorian humorist, is one of the modern editor's shibboleths for detecting the unfit. And even those who regard only the present will do well to remember that in literature as elsewhere there are as many conservatives as progressives, as many who expect their writers to say things a little better than they could do themselves as who are flattered by the proof that one man is no better than another.

'Skepsey did come back to London with rather a damaged frontispiece', Victor said.—Meredith.

Henson, however, once negotiated a sprint down his wing, and put in a fine dropping shot to Aubert, who saved.—Guernsey Evening Press.

Passengers, the guild add, usually arrive at the last moment before sailing, when the master must concentrate his mind upon negotiating a safe passage.—Times.

To deal with these extensive and purely local breeding grounds in the manner suggested by Major Ross would be a very tall order.—Times.

In about twenty minutes he returned, accompanied by a highly intelligent-looking individual, dressed in blue and black, with a particularly white cravat, and without a hat on his head; this individual, whom I should have mistaken for a gentleman but for the intelligence depicted in his face, he introduced to me as the master of the inn.—Borrow.

A Sèvres vase sold yesterday at Christie's realized what is believed to be the record price of 4,000 guineas.—Times.

You could not, if you had tried, have made so perfect a place for two girls to lounge in, to laze in, to read silly novels in, or to go to sleep in on drowsy afternoons.—Crockett.

Mr. Balfour's somewhat thrasonical eulogies.—Spectator.

A quarrelsome, somewhat thrasonical fighting man.—Spectator.

The true inwardness of this statement is...—Times.

We do not know what inwardness there may be in the order of his discourses, though each of them has some articulate link with that which precedes.–Times.

Such a departure from etiquette at the psychological moment shows tact and discretion.–Times.

He asserts that about four years ago there was quite an Argentine boom in New Zealand.—Times.