194 NOTES ON STYLE 



Latin detains the analyst of national style, not without 

 reason, seeing that this language is the parent of so many 

 modern tongues and the mistress of all modern literature. 



Italian might be regarded as a prolongation of Latin into 

 a third period of existence. It retains some of the Roman 

 qualities. Dante could write : 



Dopo la dolorosa rotta quando 

 Carlo Magno perde la santa gesta, 

 Non sono si terribilmente Orlando. 



Tasso made lines of sounding vocables like this : 

 Immense solitudini d' arena. 



MachiaveHi used a pen of steel, writing with a compressed 

 energy and simple regard for perspicuity which was worthy 

 of an Augustan. 



Monumental strength is not, however, the specific quality 

 of the Italian language, and has rarely been aimed at by 

 Italian writers. The abundance of definite and indefinite 

 articles, the conjugation of verbs by auxiliaries, the frequency 

 of terminations in essero, ebbero, ossono, give a languor and 

 indecision to the style. Italian loiters and seems to hesitate. 

 Its characteristic is not rapidity, not robustness. The beauty 

 of liquid numbers and sonorous vowel-sounds makes it the 

 language of melody, and gives to the best Italian rhythms the 

 charm of a sustained cantilena. 



I observed above, that the languages which exhibit the 

 highest capacity for style are those which combine loyalty to 

 their native traditions with plasticity, becoming with each 

 successive phase of culture more perfect instruments for the 

 expression of those ideas which are gradually introduced into 

 the common stock of civilisation. Now this is what the 

 Italian language has hitherto missed. Italian writers have 

 failed to cultivate the language on its plastic side, and 

 to keep it duly open to the influx of ideas. The result is 



