pleasures which it
affords."

"It must be allowed," replied Lord Nelville, "that you explain very
clearly the beauties and defects of your poetry; but how will you defend
your prose, in which those defects are to be found unaccompanied by the
beauties? That which is only loose and indefinite in poetry will become
emptiness in prose; and the crowd of common ideas which your poets
embellish with their melody and their images, are in prose, cold and
dry, while their vivacity of style renders them more fatiguing. The
language of the greater part of the prose-writers of the present day is
so declamatory, so diffuse, and so abundant in superlatives, that their
work seems written to order, in hackneyed phraseology, and for
conventional natures; it does not once enter into their heads that to
write well is to express one's thoughts and character. Their style is an
artificial web, a kind of literary mosaic, every thing in fact that is
foreign to their soul, and is made with the pen as any other mechanical
work is with the fingers. They possess in the highest degree the secret
of developing, commenting, inflating an idea, and, if I may use the
expression, of working a sentiment into a ferment. So much do they excel
in this, that one would be tempted to ask these writers, what the
African woman asked a French lady, who wore a large pannier under a long
dress:--'_Madam, is all that a part of yourself?_' In short, what real
existence is there in all this pomp of words which one true expression
would dissipate like a vain prestige."

"You forget," interrupted Corinne sharply; "first, Macchiavelli and
Boccacio; next Gravina, Filangieri, and in our days, Cesarotti, Verri,
Bettinelli, and so many others, in short, who know how to write and to
think[22]. But I agree with you that in the latter ages, unfortunate
circumstances having deprived Italy of its independence, its people have
lost all interest in truth and often even the possibility of speaking
it: from this has resulted the habit of sporting with words without
daring to approach a single idea. As they were certain of not being able
to obtain any influence over things by their writings, they were only
employed to display their wit, which is a sure way to end in having no
wit at all; for it is only in directing the mind towards some noble
object that ideas are acquired. When prose writers can no longer in any
way influence the happiness of a nation--when they only write to
dazzl