oetry is beyond his
grasp."

Horace laughed. "Now, my difficulty," he said, "is just the reverse.
I object to this young man because he is a bad poet."

"Why?" Maecenas asked, rather abruptly.

"Because," Horace answered, "he contorts the Latin language and
muddies his thought by Alexandrian debris."

Maecenas reached for the silver ladle and slowly filled his cup once
more from the mixing-bowl before replying. Then he said in a more
serious tone than he had used hitherto:--

"If you will allow me to say so, Flaccus, that is a cheap criticism
to come from the keenest critic in Rome. Is it not possible that you
are misled by your personal prejudices? You dislike the young man
himself, I know, because he is moody and emotional and uncontrolled,
and because he considers his own emotions fit subjects for discussion.
A boy, self-centred, melancholy, and in love--what do you want of
him?"

"Is that quite fair?" Horace answered. "Tibullus is young and in love,
and a very Heracleitus for melancholy, and you know that I not only
love him as a friend but also value him as a poet, in spite of my
belief that elegiac verse is not a fortunate medium for our language.
His Latin is limpid and direct, his metre is finished, and his emotion
as a lover is properly subordinated to his work as a poet."

"Ah," said Maecenas quickly, "but just there you betray yourself."
He hesitated a moment and then went on as if the words were welling
up from reluctant depths in his own experience. "Flaccus, you have
never loved a woman, have you?"

Horace smiled whimsically. "Not to the extent of surrendering my
standards," he said. "So far Mercury has always rescued me in time
from both Mars and Venus."

But Maecenas went on gravely, "You are, then, incapacitated for
appreciating the force and fervour of a certain kind of genius. I
know that you have never understood Catullus, and I have a feeling
that something of his spirit is reappearing in this boy to-day. If
Propertius lacks his virility and directness, that may well be
because of a heart in which there is a stormier conflict of emotions.
Certainly his passion transcends the vivacious sentiment of poor
Gallus. I tell you, my wary critic, I am almost willing to believe
that through this silly young dandy we are getting a new voice in
our literature. Who knows? who knows? It is un-Roman, yes, incoherent
and moody and subversive of law and order, but is it false to human
life? A man may ch