or
remarked, "'Oh!' properly is an expression of grief or pain. 'O!'
without the aspirate may express pleasure or hope." Current literature
rarely makes any distinction between the two, and even good writers
stumble through carelessness.

* * * * *

Style in writing was one of Landor's favorite topics, and his ire was
rarely more quickly excited than by placing before him a specimen of
high-flown sentimentality. He would put on his spectacles, exclaim,
"What is this?" and, having read a few lines, would throw the book down,
saying, "I have not the patience to read such stuff. It may be very
fine, but I cannot understand it. It is beyond me." He had little mercy
to bestow upon transcendentalists, though he praised Emerson one day,--a
marvellous proof of high regard when it is considered how he detested
the school to which Emerson belongs. "Emerson called on me when he was
in Florence many years ago, and a very agreeable visit I had from him.
He is a very clever man, and might be cleverer if he were less
sublimated. But then you Americans, practical as you are, are fond of
soaring in high latitudes." Carlyle in his last manner had the same
effect upon Landor's nerves as a discord in music produces upon a
sensitive ear. "Ah," said he with a quizzical smile, "'Frederick the
Great' convinces me that I write two dead languages,--Latin and
English!"

* * * * *

English hexameter was still another pet detestation which Landor nursed
with great volubility. In 1860 all Anglo-Saxon Florence was reading with
no little interest a poem in this metre, which had recently appeared,
and which of course passed under the critical eye of the old Grecian.
"Well, Mr. Landor, what do you think of the new poem?" I asked during
its nine days' reign. "Think of it? I don't think of it. I don't want to
be bothered with it. The book has driven all the breath out of my body.
I am lame with galloping. I've been on a gallop from the beginning to
the end. Never did I have so hard and long a ride. But what else to
expect when mounted on a _nightmare_! It may be very fine. I dare say it
is, but Giallo and I prefer our ease to being battered. I am too old to
hop, skip, and jump, and he is too sensible. It may be very bad taste,
but we prefer verse that stands on two feet to verse that limps about on
none. Now-a-days it is better to stumble than to walk erect. Giallo and
I, however, have reg