k opium and _slept herself_ to death. "Many persons
sleep themselves into a kind of unnatural stupidity." Rip Van Winkle,
according to the legend, _slept_ away a large portion of a common life.

"Sleep, sleep to-day, tormenting cares."

"And _sleep_ dull _cares_ away."

Was your sleep refreshing last night? How did you procure it? Let a
person who still adheres to his _neuter_ verbs, that sleep expresses no
action, and has no object on which it terminates, put his theory in
practice; he may as well sleep with his eyes open, sitting up, as to
_lie himself_ upon his bed.

A man lodged in an open chamber, and while he was _sleeping_ (doing
nothing) he _caught_ a severe _cold_ (active transitive verb) and had a
long _run_ of the fever. Who does not see, not only the bad, but also
the false philosophy of such attempted distinctions? How can you make a
child discover any difference in the _act of sleeping_, whether there is
an object after it, or not? Is it not the same? And is not the object
necessarily implied, whether expressed or not? Can a person _sleep_,
without procuring _sleep_?

* * *

"_I stand._"

The man _stands_ firm in his integrity. Another stands in a very
precarious condition, and being unable to retain his hold, _falls_ down
the precipice and is killed. Who is killed? The man, surely. Why did he
fall? Because he could not _stand_. But there is no _action_ in
_standing_, say the books.

"_Stand_ by thyself, come not near me?" "_Stand_ fast in the liberty
wherewith Christ hath made you free, and _be_ not again entangled in the
yoke of bondage." "Let him that thinketh he _standeth_, take heed lest
he _fall_." If it requires no act to _stand_, there can be no danger of
falling.

"Two pillars stood together; the rest had fallen to the ground. The one
on the right was quite perfect in all its parts. The other _resembled
it_ very much, except it had _lost_ its capital, and _suffered_ some
other injuries." How could the latter column, while performing no action
in _standing_, act _transitively_, according to our grammars, and do
something to _resemble_ the other? or, what did it do to _lose_ its
capital, and _suffer_ other injury?

* * *

"To _lie_, or _lay_."

It has been admitted that the verbs before considered are often used as
active verbs, and that there is, in truth, action expressed by them.
But when the man has fallen from his seat and _lies_ upo