Many such expressions are ambiguouSy many misleading. Sue,
for example, i Thess. i. 4, your election of God,-— a passage
almost always misunderstood. When the sense is perfectly
clear, however, this use of the possessive is correct ; as, the
King^s enemies, one's friends, a month's mind (not obsolete
among one body of Christians, certainly), for my sake, their
separation, a day's work, ten year's toil. Brevity, too, would
recommend these expressions. The objection to whose with
reference to things is especially weak, wr., that ** the use of one
possessive form for both " persons and things is ** inconsistent."
No sufficient reason can be urged against the use, and Marsh
concedes that the "distinction" is **by no means yet fully
established," that until recently the best English writers used
whose as a neuter, and that many good authorities still use it so
* ' in certain combinadons. ' * Bain declares * * the rule that whose
applies only to persons" to be ** altogether at variance with
literary usage."

^Some writers declare unreservedly against this construction ; but it has at
least one merit, brevity. At the same time, there is no denying that it is poetic
rather than prose-like, and may easily lead astray. The first and second
examples are from Shakspere ; the third and fifth certainly confuse, rather than
communicate, thought; the fourth has something of epigrammatic surprise
about it, and may be allowed occasionally as a deliberate evasion of strict rule ;
while the last (from Gibbon) carries contraction to its utmost, — in fact equals
the Greek zeugma. A master in composition will probably have discernment
enough to use such sentences judiciously ; a beginner should ally himself with
"discretion, the better part of valor," and seek intelligibility at any sacrifice.
