Will

“It is in sentence structure more than in any other aspect of style that T.'s distinctiveness is most visible. In all Latin prose authors many sentences consist of single clauses or two co-ordinated main clauses. But when authors write complex sentences, two main types are prominent: (1) a narrative sentence in which, after one or more subordinate clauses (or their equivalents, e.g. ablative absolutes or other participial phrases), the sentence is concluded by the main clause (or at least its predicate) and finishes, more often than not, with its main verb; (2) an oratorical period in which words, phrases, and clauses are balanced against one another, and where that balance (concinnitas) is often marked by rhetorical devices such as antithesis and assonance. As a former orator T. shows his skill in the second type when, as was expected of ancient historians, he puts invented speeches into the mouths of various characters: see, for example, the speech of Cremutius Cordus at 34.2 – 35.3. But it is in his handling of the narrative or descriptive type of sentence that T.'s individuality is most distinct. Attention will focus here on two major features only.

Ch. 29 begins with the following sentence: 'Tum accusatory Cn. Lentulum et Seium Tuberonem nominat, magno pudore Caesaris, cum primores ciuitatis, intimi ipsius amici, Lentulus senectutis extremae, Tubero defecto corpore, tumultus hostilis et turbandae rei publicae accerserentur.' Here the main clause consists of eight initial words and is followed by an 'appendix' which is almost three times as long, is introduced by an ablative clause, gives Tiberius' reaction to the event of the main clause, and is then extended further by an explanatory cum-clause. This type of sentence is one of the commonest in T. The appendix is repeatedly expressed by an ablative absolute, which may offer an explanation of, or comment on, the action of the main clause, or may simply add a further fact. The appendix may be very short (as 64.1 'duesto monte Caelio') or of considerable length: the example at 29.1 is of moderate length, but that at 59.3 consists of fifty-five words. The contrast between such sentences and the more conventional narrative type, in which subordinate elements precede and build up to the statement of the main clause, arguably reflects a different way of looking at events and their consequences. When the main clause is completed early in the sentence, emphasis is inevitably thrown on the appended element(s); and since the appendix regularly gives men's motives for acting, or their reactions to events, this type of sentence clearly appealed to T. as the ideal vehicle for the cynical psychology which he so often imputes to his characters.”
― A.J. Woodman, Annals IV

“Everywhere in the Northern Hemisphere spring had come and gone. The season had swept far to the north; it had climbed mountains; it had passed into the sky. Like a sound, spring spreads and spreads until it is swallowed up in space. Like the wind, it moves across the map invisible; we see it only in its effects. It appears like the tracks of the breeze on a field of wheat, like shadows of wind-blown clouds, like tossing branches that reveal the presence of the invisible, the passing of the unseen. So spring had spread from Georgia to North Carolina, from Virginia to Canada, leaving consequences beyond number in its wake. We longed for a thousand springs on the road instead of this one. For spring is like life. You never grasp it entire; you touch it here, there; you know it only in parts and fragments. Reflecting thus as we started south on that first morning of summer - on the day of the summer solstice, the longest day of the year - we were well aware that it is only on the calendar that spring comes to so sudden a termination. In reality its end is a gradual change. Season merges with season in a slow transition into another life.”
― Edwin Way Teale, North With the Spring: A Naturalist's Record of a 17,000-Mile Journey With the North American Spring

“Qua na stat nagin pront davant la porta, uschia che jau m'avischin e splunt in zic timida. Ina dunna cun schlappa e scussal alv m'avra. Probablamain la cuschiniera. Immediat cumenza ella a discurrer per tudestg. Jau na chapesch betg pled e na sai betg tge dir. Dus egls severs m'examineschan. Ella para da spetgar ina resposta. Qua cumpara tuttenina in'autra dunna davos ella. Quella porta in bellezza vestgì e surri en maniera simpatica. 'Haben wir Besuch, Roswitha?', dumonda ella la cuschiniera. 'Nun ja, dieses Mädchen is hier aufgetaucht. Ich weiss nicht, ob es stumm ist oder unsere Sprache nicht spricht.' La cuschiniera guarda sco sch'ella n'avess betg grond gust da sa fatschentar pli ditg cun mai. 'Ist schon gut, Roswitha, du kannst sie mir überlassen.' Jau hai empruvà da suandar lur discurs cun tutta fadia, ma n'hai tuttina chapì nagut. Ussa sa drizla la dunna cun il surrir amiaivel a mai: 'Buna saira, jau sun la patruna da quest hotel.' Ella ma tanscha il maun. 'Discurris Vus rumantsch?' Surstada dun jau dal chau. Cun quai n'aveva jau betg quintà. Ella è bain la patruna tudestga, pertge sa ella pia rumantsch? Sche mes parents discurrivan davart ils Tudestgs, eran els adina plain aversiun: 'Taidla, Catrina, quels pensan ch'il rumantsch saja la lingua da las muntognas, dals purs. Ils Tudestgs n'empruvassan mai da communitgar cun nus. Ma quai è bain en urden, nus stain gugent tranter nus.' L'experientscha d'ier m'ha confermà quai. Questa dunna qua è dentant tut autra.”
― Laura Schütz, Hotel Destin

“For years Angus McAllister had set before himself as his earthly goal the construction of a gravel path through the Castle’s famous yew alley. For years he had been bringing the project to the notice of his employer, though in anyone less whiskered the latter’s unconcealed loathing would have caused embarrassment. And now, it seemed, he was at it again.

'Gravel path!' Lord Emsworth stiffened through the whole length of his stringy body. Nature, he had always maintained, intended a yew alley to be carpeted with a mossy growth. And, whatever Nature felt about it, he personally was dashed if he was going to have men with Clydeside accents and faces like dissipated potatoes coming along and mutilating that lovely expanse of green velvet. 'Gravel path, indeed! Why not asphalt? Why not a few hoardings with advertisements of liver pills and a filling station? That’s what the man would really like.'

Lord Emsworth felt bitter, and when he felt bitter he could be terribly sarcastic.

'Well, I think it is a very good idea,' said his sister. 'One could walk there in wet weather then. Damp moss is ruinous to shoes.'

Lord Emsworth rose. He could bear no more of this. He left the table, the room, and the house, and, reaching the yew alley some minutes later, was revolted to find it infested by Angus McAllister in person. The head-gardener was standing gazing at the moss like a high priest of some ancient religion about to stick the gaff into the human sacrifice.

'Morning, McAllister,' said Lord Emsworth, coldly.

'Good morrrrning, your lorrudsheep.'

There was a pause. Angus McAllister, extending a foot that looked like a violin-case, pressed it on the moss. The meaning of the gesture was plain. It expressed contempt, dislike, a generally anti-moss spirit; and Lord Emsworth, wincing, surveyed the man unpleasantly through his pince-nez. Though not often given to theological speculation, he was wondering why Providence, if obliged to make head-gardeners, had found it necessary to make them so Scotch. In the case of Angus McAllister, why, going a step farther, have made him a human being at all? All the ingredients of a first-class mule simply thrown away. He felt that he might have liked Angus McAllister if he had been a mule.

'I was speaking to her leddyship yesterday.'

'Oh?'

'About the gravel path I was speaking to her leddyship.'

'Oh?'

'Her leddyship likes the notion fine.'

'Indeed! Well——'

Lord Emsworth’s face had turned a lively pink, and he was about to release the blistering words which were forming themselves in his mind when suddenly he caught the head-gardener’s eye and paused. Angus McAllister was looking at him in a peculiar manner, and he knew what that look meant. Just one crack, his eye was saying—in Scotch, of course—just one crack out of you and I tender my resignation. And with a sickening shock it came home to Lord Emsworth how completely he was in this man’s clutches.

He shuffled miserably. Yes, he was helpless. Except for that kink about gravel paths, Angus McAllister was a head-gardener in a thousand, and he needed him. He could not do without him. Filled with the coward rage that dares to burn but does not dare to blaze, Lord Emsworth coughed a cough that was undisguisedly a bronchial white flag.

'I’ll—er—I’ll think it over, McAllister.'

'Mphm.'

'I have to go to the village now. I will see you later.'

'Mphm.'

'Meanwhile, I will—er—think it over.'

'Mphm.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best