Language_, p. 147. If the construction is objectionable, it may, in this
instance, be altered thus: "It is really curious, _to observe_ the course
which balls will sometimes take!" So, it appears, we may avoid a _pleonasm_
by an _addition_. But he finds a worse example: saying, "Again, in an
article _from_ the 'New Monthly,' No. 103, we meet with the same form of
expression, _but with an aggravated aspect_:--'It is incredible, the number
of apothecaries' shops, presenting themselves.' It would be quite as easy
to say, 'The number of apothecaries' shops, presenting themselves, is
incredible.' "--_Ib._, p. 147. This, too, may take an infinitive, "_to
tell_," or "_to behold_;" for there is no more extravagance in doubting
one's eyes, than in declaring one's own statement "incredible." But I am
not sure that the original form is not allowable. In the following line, we
seem to have something like it:

"It curled not Tweed alone, that breeze."--_Sir W. Scott_.

OBS. 18.--_Relative_ and _interrogative_ pronouns are placed at or near the
beginning of their own clauses; and the learner must observe that, through
all their cases, they almost invariably retain this situation in the
sentence, and are found before their verbs even when the order of the
construction would reverse this arrangement: as, "He _who_ preserves me, to
_whom_ I owe my being, _whose_ I am, and _whom_ I serve, is
eternal."--_Murray_, p. 159. "He _whom_ you seek."--_Lowth_.

"The good must merit God's peculiar care;
But _who_, but God, can tell us _who_ they are?"--_Pope_.

OBS. 19.--A _relative_ pronoun, being the representative of some antecedent
word or phrase, derives from this relation its person, number, and gender,
but not its case. By taking an other relation of case, it helps to form an
other clause; and, by retaining the essential meaning of its antecedent,
serves to connect this clause to that in which the antecedent is found. No
relative, therefore, can ever be used in an independent simple sentence, or
be made the subject of a subjunctive verb, or be put in apposition with any
noun or pronoun; but, like other connectives, this pronoun belongs at the
head of a clause in a compound sentence, and excludes conjunctions, except
when two such clauses are to be joined together, as in the following
example: "I should be glad, at least, of an easy companion, _who_ may tell
me his thoughts, _and_ to _whom_ I may communicate mine."--_Goldsmith's