yet it was perhaps not perfectly correct, for we have already seen that Ariosto always described thus both true and imaginary beauties, Olympias and Alcinas. The true answer seems to be the one already given, that it would be useless to seek for features of energy in Ariosto, lively portraits dashed off in a couple of brush strokes, for these things presuppose a mode of feeling that he lacked altogether or, at any rate suppressed. Those "laughing fleeting" eyes, which are all Sylvia, "le doux sourire amoureux et souffrant," which are the whole of the spiritual sister-soul of the _Maison du Berger,_ do not belong to Ariosto, but to Leopardi and to De Vigny. There are two ways in which the _Furioso_ should not be read: the first is the way in which one reads a work of rhythmic and lofty moral inspiration, like the _Promessi Sposi,_ tracing, that is to say, the development of a serious human affection, which circulates in and determines every part alike, even to the smallest detail; the second is that suitable for such works as _Faust,_ where the general composition, which is more or less guided by mental concepts, does not at all coincide with the poetical inspiration of the separate parts. Here the poetical should be separated from the unpoetical parts, and the poetically endowed reader will neglect the one to enjoy the other. In the _Furioso,_ this inequality of work is absent or only present to a very slight extent (that is to say, to the extent that imperfection must ever be present in the most perfect work of man) and it is as equally harmonious as the _Promessi Sposi;_ but it lacks that particular form of passionate seriousness, to be found throughout Manzoni's work and in stray passages of Goethe's. The _Furioso_ should therefore be read in a third manner, namely by following a content which is ever the same, yet ever expressed in new forms, whose attraction consists in the magic of this ever-identical yet inexhaustible variety of appearances, without paying attention to the material element of the narratives and descriptions.