Question about a semicolon of punctuation marks
Hi, everyone.

As long as I know, the meaning of a semicolon is "and plus comma."

In a sentece written by Helen Keller in her essay, Optimism, there is difficult one, which I could interpret with my understanding of a semicolon. The sentence is that:
"My life was without past or future; death, the pessimist would say, 'a consummation devoutly to be wished.'"

I understand this sentence like "My life was without past of future, and it is death, if the pessimist experienced my life, he would describe it as 'a consummation devoutly to be wished.'"

Do I understand correctly? Or, does it have different meaning with my interpretation.

I sincerely appreciate your help.

Question

Question about a semicolon of punctuation marks
Hi, everyone.

As long as I know, the meaning of a semicolon is "and plus comma."

In a sentece written by Helen Keller in her essay, Optimism, there is difficult one, which I could interpret with my understanding of a semicolon. The sentence is that:  
"My life was without past or future; death, the pessimist would say, 'a consummation devoutly to be wished.'"

I understand this sentence like "My life was without past of future, and it is death, if the pessimist experienced my life, he would describe it as 'a consummation devoutly to be wished.'"

Do I understand correctly? Or, does it have different meaning with my interpretation.

I sincerely appreciate your help.

Answer

I think your interpretation is very close and that the sentence is quite difficult. I interpret it slightly differently as "My life was without past or future, and a pessimist would say that death is a consummation devoutly to be wished [i.e. that death is better than her life at that time]." But this is a slightly archaic use of the semicolon, I would say.

Answer

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