I remember Wordsworth once laughingly reporting to me a little
     personal anecdote.—­DE QUINCEY.

     Here I state them only in brief, to prevent the reader casting
     about in alarm for my ultimate meaning.—­RUSKIN.

     We think with far less pleasure of Cato tearing out his
     entrails than of Russell saying, as he turned away from his
     wife, that the bitterness of death was past.—­MACAULAY.

     There is actually a kind of sacredness in the fact of such a
     man being sent into this earth.—­CARLYLE.

[Sidenote:  Possessive.]

     There is no use for any man’s taking up his abode in a house
     built of glass.—­CARLYLE.

     As to his having good grounds on which to rest an action for
     life.—­DICKENS.

     The case was made known to me by a man’s holding out the
     little creature dead.—­DE QUINCEY.

     There may be reason for a savage’s preferring many kinds of
     food which the civilized man rejects.—­THOREAU.

     It informs me of the previous circumstances of my laying aside
     my clothes.—­C.  BROCKDEN BROWN.

     The two strangers gave me an account of their once having been
     themselves in a somewhat similar condition.—­AUDUBON.

     There was a chance of their being sent to a new school, where
     there were examinations.—­RUSKIN

     This can only be by his preferring truth to his past
     apprehension of truth.—­EMERSON

III.  PERSONAL PRONOUNS AND THEIR ANTECEDENTS.

409.  The pronouns of the third person usually refer back to some preceding noun or pronoun, and ought to agree with them in person, number, and gender.

[Sidenote:  Watch for the real antecedent.]

There are two constructions in which the student will need to watch the pronoun,—­when the antecedent, in one person, is followed by a phrase containing a pronoun of a different person; and when the antecedent is of such a form that the pronoun following cannot indicate exactly the gender.  Examples of these constructions are,—­

     Those of us who can only maintain themselves by continuing in
     some business or salaried office.—­RUSKIN.

     Suppose the life and fortune of every one of us would depend on
     his winning or losing a game of chess.—­HUXLEY.

     If any one did not know it, it was his own fault.—­CABLE.

     Everybody had his own life to think of.—­DEFOE.

410.  In such a case as the last three sentences,—­when the antecedent includes both masculine and feminine, or is a distributive word, taking in each of many persons,—­the preferred method is to put the pronoun following in the masculine singular; if the antecedent is neuter, preceded by a distributive, the pronoun will be neuter singular.