Note 19 — Section 104. THE DRAMA OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1848. IV.
Reading edition
were — King = ‘were just as faithless towards themselves as they were towards the King’, and insert the grammatical subject es after the pronoun ‘they’.—The grammatical subject es is frequently employed for emphasizing the real subject or to give more tone and like to the construction; as—Es sprach die Leidenschaft aus seinen Zügen. It is, moreover, used with all impersonal verbs; as—es friert, es donnert, es giebt, es ist.
Return to Section 104. THE DRAMA OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1848. IV.Return to Section 146. MR. H. M. STANLEY’S APPEAL[1] FOR SUPPLIES. I.Return to Section 173. THE BATTLE OF[1] KASSASSIN. I.Return to Section 188. THE FAVOURITE HARES. II.Return to Section 223. CHRISTMAS IN GERMANY. III.Return to Section 228. A TOUCHING SCENE AT SEA. II.Return to INDEX TO THE GRAMMATICAL RULES AND IDIOMATIC RENDERINGS.Return to INDEX TO THE GRAMMATICAL RULES AND IDIOMATIC RENDERINGS.