15-1. Lily Dyer was a favorite with the village folk. She had just the qualities to arouse admiration: she was good and handsome and smart.
16. It is a party which is as yet without a name. And what is even stranger, without a nickname.
No. 16 is a somewhat extreme, though common, result of seeking to make one’s sentences short. No mark at all is needed, or permissible, before “and” in such a sentence:
16-1. It is a party without a name and, what is even stranger, without a nickname.
17. Polemic is always dreary. Devotion always interests. This is because men are nearly always wrong when they want their own way, and always partly right when they worship.
As the third sentence in the above example does not grow out of the sentence preceding it, sentence unity is destroyed; and, besides, the use of “this” clearly shows reference to a thought expressed in the _two_ preceding sentences. A semicolon is the proper mark after “dreary,” to make one sentence of the two, out of which the third grows.
18. Milton does not paint a finished picture, or play for a mere passive listener. He sketches, and leaves others to fill up the outline. He strikes the key-note, and expects his hearers to make out the melody.
In this example sentence unity is wholly disregarded: the first picture is put into one sentence, instead of two; the second picture is put into two sentences, instead of one. Moreover, as the second picture is but an amplification of the first, both pictures may be put into one sentence, and should be so put, in accordance with the punctuation we have discussed.
As now punctuated, the second sentence does not grow out of the first, but out of the first half of the first; and the third sentence, instead of growing out of the second, grows out of the second half of the first, ignoring the second sentence entirely.
Uniting the second and third sentences by a semicolon will improve the grouping and the punctuation; but making one sentence out of the three is still better:
18-1. Milton does not paint a finished picture, or play for a mere passive listener: he sketches, and leaves others to fill up the outline; he strikes the key-note, and expects his hearers to make out the melody.
The relations between the groups may be shown in another way; but such mode of expressing thought is not tolerable: