182 NOTES ON STYLE 



of heroic mortals. Language has advanced further from its 

 primitive exuberance. Latin has no dual, no aorist, no middle 

 voice, no verbs in /u. It is deficient in the otiose particles 

 which made the Greek speech garrulous, retaining only such 

 conjunctions and prepositions as are strictly needful for the 

 logical coherence of sentences. It has dropped the definite 

 article, which contributes so much to the lightness of Greek. 

 . No language of the same family is more parsimonious than 

 Latin in the means employed for utterance. None relies for 

 its rhetorical and logical effect more boldly upon the declen- 

 sion of nouns and participles, the inflection of verbs, and the 

 collocation of vocables. Greek superfluities have disappeared ; 

 the auxiliaries of modern languages have only partially begun 

 to sprout. Economy is exhibited in every element of this 

 athletic tongue. Like a naked gladiator, all bone and muscle, 

 it relies upon bare sinewy strength. Having preserved 

 genders, Latin is able to dispense with the indefinite article, 

 trusting to the cadence of nouns, adjectives, and participles 

 for the structure of its propositions. Since pronouns are not 

 demanded as subjects of the Latin verb, the appearance o 

 them becomes rhetorically emphatic : 



Multis ille bonis flebilis occidit. . . . 

 Tempora mutantur nos et mutamur in illis. 



As a consequence of these peculiarities, Latin is the monu 

 mental language, the language of lapidary inscription, o 

 proverb and of epigram, of terse sentences and legal edicts 

 It is also the oratorical language, abounding in sonorous 

 words of ositas and atio, and long reverberating verbs in the 

 subjunctive mood. The consonants are more closely packec 

 and carry greater weight than in the Greek ; still the vowe 

 sounds are deep, open, and plentifully distributed. It woulc 

 be difficult to match the following line for opulence in any 

 other literature : 



Spargens humida mella soporiferumque papaver. 



The Greek, as we have learned from Pindar, could do much 

 by massive building, by the juxtaposition of words in 



