uration.
The tenses of the indicative mood, are the most definite; and, for this
reason, as well as for some others, the explanations of all these
modifications of the verb, are made with particular reference to that mood.
Some suppose the compound or participial form, as _I am writing_, to be
more definite in time, than the simple form, as _I write_, or the emphatic
form, as _I do write_; and accordingly they divide all the tenses into
_Indefinite_ and _Definite_. Of this division Dr. Webster seems to claim
the invention; for he gravely accuses Murray of copying it unjustly from
him, though the latter acknowledges in a note upon his text, it "is, _in
part_, taken from Webster's Grammar."--_Murray's Octavo Gram._, p. 73. The
distribution, as it stands in either work, is not worth quarrelling about:
it is evidently more cumbersome than useful. Nor, after all, is it true
that the compound form is more definite in time than the other. For
example; "Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, _was always betraying_ his
unhappiness."--_Art of Thinking_, p. 123. Now, if _was betraying_ were a
more definite tense than _betrayed_, surely the adverb "_always_" would
require the latter, rather than the former.

OBS. 4.--The present tense, of the indicative mood, expresses not only what
is now actually going on, but general truths, and customary actions: as,
"Vice _produces_ misery."--"He _hastens_ to repent, who _gives_ sentence
quickly."--_Grant's Lat. Gram._, p. 71. "Among the Parthians, the signal
_is given_ by the drum, and not by the trumpet."--_Justin_. Deceased
authors may be spoken of in the present tense, because they seem to live
in their works; as, "Seneca _reasons_ and _moralizes_ well."--_Murray_.
"Women _talk_ better than men, from the superior shape of their tongues: an
ancient writer _speaks_ of their loquacity three thousand years
ago."--_Gardiner's Music of Nature_, p. 27.

OBS. 5.--The text, John, viii, 58, "Before Abraham _was_, I _am_," is a
literal Grecism, and not to be cited as an example of pure English: our
idiom would seem to require, "Before Abraham _was_, I _existed_." In
animated narrative, however, the present tense is often substituted for the
past, by the figure _enallage_. In such cases, past tenses and present may
occur together; because the latter are used merely to bring past events
more vividly before us: as, "Ulysses _wakes_, not knowing where he
_was_."--_Pope_. "The dictator _flies_ forward to the cava