We know that Italian is heard only occasionally by him during his visits to Italy, and is then heard by him only in its polished speech. To those by whom it is heard every day, as spoken by all classes, it certainly possesses nothing of this privilege which he claims for it. It can be, on the contrary, very coarse and crude; it has none of the subtleties and graces, and delicate gradations of French: it calls a spade a spade with the rudest frankness; and its curses are of an appalling ferocity and filthiness. Nor can it be said that D'Annunzio ever tries to give it delicacy or veiled suggestion; his language is as broad and as gross as that of Ovid or Catullus. He never allows the smallest doubt about his meaning to exist at any time; and he is most especially explicit when treating of those subjects which in modern literature are generally considered forbidden. Indeed, this anxiety to paint the brothel and the madhouse as carefully and minutely as the miniaturist paints on the ivory, leads to his great defect, over-elaboration. He does not trust enough to the power of suggestion, which is so strong in a great writer over the mind of a reader. He does not remember that half a chord may fill the ear with melody, and that a hint may rouse the senses to nausea or to desire. Paradoxical as it may appear to say so, I think his wide culture has injured his style. I think he would have been a greater Italian writer if he had known no language save Italian and, of course, Latin and Greek. The extreme culture and over-variety of modern education tends to destroy, or at least disturb, originality; it encumbers the mind under too vast a load of riches, it enlightens, but it also obstructs; if Shakespeare had been less ignorant he might, perhaps, have been also less great.