g any thing. It would be
well for grammar, as well as many other things, to have more practice
and less theory. The thief was detected by his steps. Step softly; put
your feet down carefully.

_Birds fly._

We learned from our primers, that

"The eagle's _flight_
Is out of sight,"

How did the eagle succeed in producing a _flight_? I suppose he _flew_
it. And if birds ever fly, they must produce a flight. Such being the
fact, it is needless to supply the object. But the action does not
terminate solely on the flight produced, for that is only the name given
to the action itself. The expression conveys to the mind the obvious
fact, that, by strong muscular energy, by the aid of feathers, and the
atmosphere, the bird carries itself thro the air, and changes its being
from one place to another. As birds rarely fly a race, or any thing but
_themselves_ and a _flight_, it is not necessary to suffix the object.

_It rains._

This verb is insisted on as the strongest proof of intransitive action;
with what propriety, we will now inquire. It will serve as a clear
elucidation of the whole theory of intransitive verbs.

What does the expression signify? It simply declares the fact, that
_water is shed_ down from the clouds. But is there no object after
_rains_? There is none expressed. Is there nothing rained? no effect
produced? If not, there can be no water fallen, and our cisterns would
be as empty, our streams as low, and fields as parched, after a rain as
before it! But who that has common sense, and has never been blinded by
the false rules of grammar, does not know that when _it rains_, it never
fails to _rain rain_, _water_, or _rain-water_, unless you have one of
the paddy's dry rains? When it hails, it hails _hail_, _hail-stones_, or
frozen _rain_. When it snows, it _snows snow_, sometimes two feet of it,
sometimes less. I should think teachers in our northern countries would
find it exceeding difficult to convince their readers that snow is an
intransitive verb--that it snows _nothing_. And yet so it is; people
will remain wedded to their old systems, and refuse to open their eyes
and behold the evidences every where around them. Teachers themselves,
the guides of the young--and I blush to say it, for I was long among the
number--have, with their scholars, labored all the morning, breaking
roads, _shovelling snow_, and clearing paths, to get to the
school-house, and then set down and taught them that _