15 a. Unemphatic words must, as a rule, be kept from the end of the sentence, it is a common fault to break this rule by placing a short and unemphatic predicate at the end of a long sentence.
"To know some Latin, even if it be nothing but a few Latin roots, is useful." Write, "It is useful, &c."
So "the evidence proves how kind to his inferiors he is." Often, where an adjective or auxiliary verb comes at the end, the addition of an emphatic adverb justifies the position, e.g. above, "is very useful," "he has invariably been."
A short "chippy" ending, even though emphatic, is to be avoided. It is abrupt and unrhythmical, e.g. "The soldier, transfixed with the spear, writhed." We want a longer ending, "fell writhing to the ground," or, "writhed in the agonies of death." A "chippy" ending is common in bad construing from Virgil.
Exceptions.—Prepositions and pronouns attached to emphatic words need not be moved from the end; e.g. "He does no harm that I hear of." "Bear witness how I loved him."
N.B. In all styles, especially in letter-writing, a final emphasis must not be so frequent as to become obtrusive and monotonous.
15 b. An interrogation sometimes gives emphasis.
"No one can doubt that the prisoner, had he been really guilty, would have shown some signs of remorse," is not so emphatic as "Who can doubt, Is it possible to doubt, &c.?"
Contrast "No one ever names Wentworth without thinking of &c." with "But Wentworth,—who ever names him without thinking of those harsh dark features, ennobled by their expression into more than the majesty of an antique Jupiter?"
16. The subject, if unusually emphatic, should often be removed from the beginning of the sentence. The beginning of the sentence is an emphatic position, though mostly not so emphatic as the end. Therefore the principal subject of a sentence, being emphatic, and being wanted early in the sentence to tell us what the sentence is about, comes as a rule, at or near the beginning: "Thomas built this house."
Hence, since the beginning is the usual place for the subject, if we want to emphasize "Thomas" unusually, we must remove "Thomas" from the beginning: "This house was built by Thomas" or "It was Thomas that built this house."
Thus, the emphasis on "conqueror" is not quite so strong in "A mere conqueror ought not to obtain from us the reverence that is due to the great benefactors of mankind," as in "We ought ...