"Without having attended to this, we _will_ be at a loss, in understanding
several passages in the classics."--Blair's _Lectures_.

"We know to what cause our past reverses have been owing and _we_
will have ourselves to blame, if they are again incurred."--Alison's
_History of Europe_.

Adverbial mistakes often occur in the best writers. The adverb _rather_ is
a word very frequently misplaced. Archbishop Trench in his "English Past
and Present" writes, "It _rather_ modified the structure of our sentences
than the elements of our vocabulary." This should have been written,--"It
modified the structure of our sentences _rather than_ the elements of our
vocabulary."

"So far as his mode of teaching goes he is _rather_ a disciple of
Socrates than of St. Paul or Wesley." Thus writes Leslie Stephens of Dr.
Johnson. He should have written,--" So far as his mode of teaching goes
he is a disciple of Socrates _rather_ than of St. Paul or Wesley."

The preposition is a part of speech which is often wrongly used by some
of the best writers. Certain nouns, adjectives and verbs require
particular prepositions after them, for instance, the word _different_
always takes the preposition _from_ after it; _prevail_ takes _upon_;
_averse_ takes _to_; _accord_ takes _with_, and so on.

In the following examples the prepositions in parentheses are the ones
that should have been used:

"He found the greatest difficulty _of_ (in) writing."--Hume's