How to parse. ...

230

0THE INFINITIVE. [Par. 398, 399.

"To" in Questions and Relative
Clauses.
398 There appears to have been an old Interrogative
use of the Infinitive, of which we still retain remnants in such expressions as(1) " Where to begin? How (to) excuse myself?"1
In dependent questions this Infinitive was, and
is, very common: -
(2) "I know not where to begin, nor how to excuse
myself."
No doubt this idiom is facilitated by the analogy
of "I know not the place to begin, nor the way to
excuse myself," which may be compared with the
Noun-use of "wherewith," e.g. "I have not the
wherewith to Jkeep a carriage," "I must know the
how and the why." Add(3) "I know not wlether to term it a fault or a misfortune."
(4) " The difficulty is how to teach him that he needs
teaching."
399 The sentence "I have no money to buy food" is
logically correct, but is felt to be unsatisfactorily
incomplete. It has therefore been completed in
different ways: (a) " I have no money to buy food
with, or withal, or therewith;" (b) "I have no

1 Although the words are not inserted, yet one feels that this is
a short way of saying: " Where (am I) to begin? [low (am I to)
excuse myself?"