emphatic; the emphasis is on 'conceive'. Yet the inversion inoffensive, being in fact not exclamatory at all, but a licensed extension of negative inversion, which is treated below.
- Bitterly did I regret the perverse, superstitious folly that had induced me to neglect so obvious a precaution.
- But in these later times, with so many disillusions, with fresh problems confronting science as it advances, rare must be the spirit of faith with which Haeckel regards his works.—Times.
- Gladly would he now have consented to the terms...
- With difficulty can I conceive of a mental condition in which...
Exclamatory inversion, like everything else that is exclamatory, should of course be used sparingly.
b. Balance inversion.
The following are familiar and legitimate types:
- First on our list stands the question of local option.
- On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
- To this cause may be attributed...
- Among the guest were A, B, C,... Z.
We give the name of 'balance' to this kind of inversion because, although the writer, in inverting the sentence, may not be distinctly conscious of rectifying its balance, the fact that it was ill-balanced before is the true cause of inversion. It is a mistake to say that the words placed first in the above examples are so placed for the sake of emphasis; that is a very common impression, and is responsible for many unlawful inversions. It is not emphasis that is given to these words, it is protection; they are placed there to protect them from being virtually annihilated, as they would have been if left at end. Look at the last of our examples: how can we call the words 'Among the guests were' emphatic, or say that they were placed there for emphasis? They are essential words, they show the connexion, nor could the sentence be a sentence them; but they are as unemphatic as words could well be.—Why, then (it may be asked), are they put at the beginning? is not this an emphatic position? and does not any unusual position give emphasis?—No: it gives not emphasis but prominence, which is another thing.