I was reading Great Chain of Being by Arthur O. Lovejoy and I came across a curious usage of "as...as". The text is that:
I have often been exasperated by finding precise or paraphrases where I desiderated the actual language of the authors whose ideas were under consideration; and my rule has therefore been to give the words of relevant texts as fully as was consistent with reasonable brevity.
I have two questions here:
Firstly, "as...as" is normally used to compare relevant situations. So that two sentences before and after "as...as" should be relevant like in these examples;
Henry is acting as crazily as he always does.
Venessa is as pretty as she was in the college
The woman looked as beautiful as she did in the photograph
The remarkable point is that the adjective or adverb between "as" and "as" should be a common thing in both sentences, that is, in the first one I could say like that "Henry is acting crazily and he always acts crazily", in the second one "Venessa is pretty and she was pretty in the college". It applies for the third one.
But in the quotation, I couldn't say that "my rule has therefore been to give the words of relevant texts fully and was consistent fully". So may you help me understand this, please?
Secondly, why there is no subject in the clause after the second "as", I mean in the "as was consistent" where is the subject?