[Sidenote: _Indefinite use of_ you _and_ your.]
91. The word _you_, and its possessive case _yours_ are sometimes used without reference to a particular person spoken to. They approach the indefinite pronoun in use.
_Your_ mere puny stripling, that winced at the least flourish of the rod, was passed by with indulgence.--IRVING
To empty here, _you_ must condense there.--EMERSON.
The peasants take off their hats as _you_ pass; _you_ sneeze, and they cry, "God bless you!" The thrifty housewife shows _you_ into her best chamber. _You_ have oaten cakes baked some months before.--LONGFELLOW
92. The pronoun _it_ has a number of uses:--
(1) _To refer to some single word preceding_; as,--
Ferdinand ordered the _army_ to recommence _its_ march.--BULWER.
_Society_, in this century, has not made _its_ progress, like Chinese skill, by a greater acuteness of ingenuity in trifles.--D. WEBSTER.
(2) _To refer to a preceding word group_; thus,--
If any man should do wrong merely out of ill nature, why, yet _it_ is but like the thorn or brier, which prick and scratch because they can do no other.--BACON.
Here _it_ refers back to the whole sentence before it, or to the idea, "any man's doing wrong merely out of ill nature."
(3) _As a grammatical subject, to stand for the real, logical subject, which follows the verb_; as in the sentences,--
_It_ is easy in the world _to live after the world's opinion_. --EMERSON.
_It_ is this _haziness_ of intellectual vision which is the malady of all classes of men by nature.--NEWMAN.
_It_ is a pity _that he has so much learning, or that he has not a great deal more_.--ADDISON.
(4) _As an impersonal subject in certain expressions which need no other subject_; as,--
_It_ is finger-cold, and prudent farmers get in their barreled apples.--THOREAU.
And when I awoke, _it_ rained.--COLERIDGE.
For when _it_ dawned, they dropped their arms.--_Id._
_It_ was late and after midnight.--DE QUINCEY.
(5) _As an impersonal or indefinite object of a verb or a preposition_; as in the following sentences:--
(_a_) Michael Paw, who _lorded it_ over the fair regions of ancient Pavonia.--IRVING.
I made up my mind _to foot it_.--HAWTHORNE.
A sturdy lad ... who in turn tries all the professions, who _teams it, farms it, peddles it_, keeps a school.--EMERSON.