e
easy or common than to find men who have been educated in
all the habits and comforts of improved society, willing to
exchange them for the wild labours of the hunter and the
fisher.

VI. Where there is no danger of obscurity, the subject must not be
separated from the predicate by any point.

The eminence of your station gave you a commanding prospect
of your duty.

VII. When the subject is long, a comma may be placed after it.

To say that he endured without a murmur the misfortune that
now came upon him, is to say only what his previous life
would have led us to expect.

In every sentence the subject, whether expressed in one word or in
several words, must be grasped as a whole; and, when the subject is
long, one is often assisted in doing this by having a point to mark
its termination. The eye at once observes the separating line. Note
the corresponding pause in the reading of such sentences.

VIII. When the subject consists of several parts, _e.g._, of several
nouns, a comma is placed after the last part.

A few daring jests, a brawl, and a fatal stab, make up the
life of Marlowe.

Time, money, and friends, were needed to carry on the work.

This rule will appear reasonable if we consider an apparent exception
to it. When the last noun sums up all the others, or marks the highest
point of a climax, no comma is placed after it.

Freedom, honour, religion was at stake.

If "religion" be regarded as marking the highest point of a climax,
the predicate is read with "religion," and with it alone. When so
great a thing as religion is said to be at stake, everything else is
dropped out of sight, or is held to be included. But write the three
names as if they were of equal importance; the comma should then be
inserted:

Freedom, honour, and religion, were at stake.

But it is not necessary to use a point in such a sentence as this:
"Time and tide wait for no man." For we see without the aid of a point
that the predicate is to be read with the two nouns equally.

The principle might be applied also in cases like the following,
though few writers carry it so far:

It was the act of a high-spirited, generous, just nation.

It was the act of a high-spirited, generous, and just,
nation.

IX. Dependent clauses are generally separated from the rest of the
sentence in which they occur. The usual point is the comma.