Read the passage and answer the questions that follow
This book consists of lectures given by me at Cambridge. Though they have been largely written. I have kept a good deal of there original-from, as being (I hope) rather less formal and less dogmatic. For tom dogmatism, those who write on language seem, for some reason, particularly prone; and I should like to make it clear at once that, if at times I have put my views strongly, I do not forget that such matters of taste must remain mere matters of opinion.
In addition I have included a good many specimen passages from various authors. Perhaps I have quoted too much. But a book on styles without abundant examples seems to me as ineffectual as a book on art, or biology, without abundant illustrations. Many of these, passages are in French. That maybe Gallo mania on my part: and I must apologize if they trouble some readers. But some abilities to read French prose does seems to me most desirable for anyone who would write-well in English. I have tried to choose pieces not too difficult in syntax or vocabulary. And in these days less than ever can we afford to be insular