to designate a question.

RULE I.--QUESTIONS DIRECT.

Questions expressed directly as such, if finished, should always be
followed by the note of interrogation; as, "Was it possible that virtue so
exalted should be erected upon injustice? that the proudest and the most
ambitious of mankind should be the great master and accomplished pattern of
humility? that a doctrine so pure as the Gospel should be the work of an
uncommissioned pretender? that so perfect a system of morals should be
established on blasphemy?"--_Jerningham's Essay_, p. 81.

"In life, can love be bought with gold?
Are friendship's pleasures to be sold?"--_Johnson_.

RULE II.--QUESTIONS UNITED.

When two or more questions are united in one compound sentence, the comma,
semicolon, or dash, is sometimes used to separate them, and the eroteme
occurs after the last only; as, 1. "When--under what administration--under
what exigencies of war or peace--did the Senate ever before deal with such
a measure in such a manner? Never, sir, never."--_D. Webster, in Congress_,
1846.

2. "Canst thou, and honour'd with a Christian name,
Buy what is woman-born, and feel no shame;
Trade in the blood of innocence, and plead
Expedience as a warrant for the deed?"--_Cowper_.

3. "Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land?
All fear, none aid you, and few understand."--_Pope_.

RULE III.--QUESTIONS INDIRECT.

When a question is mentioned, but not put directly as a question, it loses
both the quality and the sign of interrogation; as, "The Cyprians asked me
_why I wept_."--_Murray_.

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.--The value of the eroteme as a sign of pause, is stated very
differently by different grammarians; while many of the vast multitude, by
a strange oversight, say nothing about it. It is unquestionably _variable_,
like that of the dash, or of the ecphoneme. W. H. Wells says, "The comma
requires a momentary pause; the semicolon, a pause somewhat longer than the
comma; the colon, a pause somewhat longer than the semicolon; and the
period, a full stop. The note of interrogation, or the note of exclamation,
_may take the place of_ EITHER _of these_, and accordingly requires a pause
of the same length as the point for which it is substituted."--_Wells's
School Gram._, p. 175. This appears to be accurate in idea, though perhaps
hardly so in language. Lindley Murray has stated it thus: "The
interrogation and exclamati