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" The genius of the French language, descended from its single Latin stock, has triumphed most in the contrary direction - in simplicity, in unity, in clarity, and in restraint. "

Lytton Strachey

Simplicity

Unity

Language

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" The old interests of aristocracy - the romance of action, the exalted passions of chivalry and war - faded into the background, and their place was taken by the refined and intimate pursuits of peace and civilization. "

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Lytton Strachey

Italy

Glory

" Ignorance is the first requisite of the historian - ignorance, which simplifies and clarifies, which selects and omits, with a placid perfection unattainable by the highest art. "

" The amateur is very rare in French literature - as rare as he is common in our own. "

Lytton Strachey

Own

Common

" English dramatic literature is, of course, dominated by Shakespeare; and it is almost inevitable that an English reader should measure the value of other poetic drama by the standards which Shakespeare has already implanted in his mind. "

" How far the existence of the Academy has influenced French literature, either for good or for evil, is an extremely dubious question. "

" Though, with the ascendancy of Louis, the political power of the nobles finally came to an end, France remained, in the whole complexion of her social life, completely aristocratic. "

" But Racine's extraordinary powers as a writer become still more obvious when we consider that besides being a great poet he is also a great psychologist. "

" The history of the Victorian Age will never be written: we know too much about it. "

" In pure literature, the writers of the eighteenth century achieved, indeed, many triumphs; but their great, their peculiar, triumphs were in the domain of thought. "

" During this earlier period of his activity Voltaire seems to have been trying - half unconsciously, perhaps - to discover and to express the fundamental quality of his genius. "

" With a very few exceptions, every word in the French vocabulary comes straight from the Latin. "

" When the French nation gradually came into existence among the ruins of the Roman civilization in Gaul, a new language was at the same time slowly evolved. "