The whole of these proceedings were so agreeable to Mr. Pecksniff, that he stood with his eyes fixed upon the floor..., as if a host of penal sentences were being passed upon him.–Dickens.
The time comes when the banker thinks it prudent to contract some of his accounts, and this may be one which he thinks it expedient to reduce: and then perhaps he makes the pleasant discovery, that there are no such persons at all as the acceptors, and that the funds for meeting all these bills have been got from himself!–H. D. Macleod.
Pleasant is put for unpleasant because the latter seemed dull and unnecessary; the writer should have taken the hint, and put nothing at all.
The climax is reached by those pessimists who, regarding the reader's case as desperate, assist him with punctuation, italics, and the like:
And this honourable (?) proposal was actually made in the presence of two at least of the parties to the former transaction!
These so-called gentlemen seem to forget...
I was content to be snubbed and harassed and worried a hundred times a day by one or other of the 'great' personages who wandered at will all over my house and grounds, and accepted my lavish hospitality. Many people imagine that it must be an 'honour' to entertain a select party of aristocrats, but I...–Corelli.
The much-prated-of 'kindness of heart' and 'generosity' possessed by millionaires, generally amounts to this kind of thing.–Corelli.
Was I about to discover that the supposed 'woman-hater' had been tamed and caught at last?–Corelli.
That should undoubtedly have been your 'great' career–you were born for it–made for it! You would have been as brute-souled as you are now...–Corelli.
c. Superlatives without the.
The omission of the with superlatives is limited by ordinary prose usage to (1) Superlatives after a possessive: 'Your best plan'. (2) Superlatives with most: 'in most distressing circumstances', but not 'in saddest circumstances'. (3) Superlatives in apposition, followed by of: "I took refuge with X., kindliest of hosts'; 'We are now at Weymouth, dingiest of decayed watering-places'. Many writers of the present day affect the omission of the in all cases where
