An interesting doubt may, in retrospect of all, be submitted, without author’s solution supplied, to entertain the speculation of the wisely considerate reader. Let the earlier still living French literature, that part of the whole body, we mean, ending, say, with the date of Montesquieu, which, in a rough approximate way, may be described as dominated by the spirit of classicism—let this be compared with the later French literature, that section in which the leaven of romanticism has strongly worked, and do you find existing an important fundamental difference in intimate quality between the one and the other? Is the later literature of a certain softer fiber, a more yielding consistence, than characterizes the earlier? Does the earlier present a harder, more quartz-like structure, a substance better fitted to resist yet for ages to come the slow but tireless tooth of time?
INDEX.
The merest approximation only can be attempted in hinting here the pronunciation of French names. In general, the French distribute the accent pretty evenly among all the syllables of their words. We mark an accent on the final syllable chiefly in order to correct a natural English tendency to slight that syllable in pronunciation. In a few cases we let a well-established English pronunciation stand. N notes a peculiar nasal sound, ü, a peculiar vowel sound, having no equivalent in English.
Ab´é-lard, Pierre (1079-1142), [13].
Academy, French, [16], [62], [119], [238], [264].
Æs´chy-lus, [77], [118], [127], [128].
Æsop, [69].
Alembert. See D’Alembert.