iousness which is
of the essence of irony.

XXXVII. The mark of exclamation is placed after the statement of some
absurdity.

He has been labouring to prove that Shakespeare's plays were
written by Bacon!

To him the parliamentary vote was a panacea for all human
ills, and the ballot-box an object as sacred as the Holy
Grail to a knight of the Round Table!

The same reason applies to its use after such sentences as after
ironical statements.

XXXVIII. The mark of exclamation may be placed after any impressive or
striking thought.

The Angel of Death has been abroad throughout the land: you
may almost hear the very beating of his wings!

It may be doubted whether the mark of exclamation is in such cases of
any great service; for the impressiveness of a sentence ought to
appear in the sentence itself, or to be given to it by the context.
There is a real danger, as the style of many people shows, in thinking
that punctuation is intended to save the trouble of careful
composition. In putting the mark after pure exclamations, usage is
more or less uniform; with regard to impressive sentences, we are left
entirely to our own discretion.

XXXIX. When a sentence contains more than one exclamation, sometimes
the mark of exclamation is placed only after the last, sometimes it is
placed after each of them, the test being whether or not they are in
reality, as well as in form, several exclamations. (Compare Rule
XXXI.)

Though all are thus satisfied with the dispensations of
Nature, how few listen to her voice! how few follow her as a
guide!

What a mighty work he has thus brought to a successful end,
with what perseverance, what energy, with what fruitfulness
of resource!

THE DASH

XL. The chief purpose of the dash is to indicate that something is
left unfinished. Accordingly, it marks a sudden, or abrupt, change in
the grammatical structure of a sentence.

When I remember how we have worked together, and together
borne misfortune; when I remember--but what avails it to
remember?

And all this long story was about--what do you think?

"We cannot hope to succeed, unless----" "But we must succeed."

Note that it is the long dash that is used at the end of a sentence.

The full stop is not added where the dash marks an unfinished
sentence. But it is common to add the point of interrogation or the
mark of