s also ought perhaps to be attributed to the relaxation of
tissue by death.

Tasso was constitutionally inclined to pensive moods. His outlook over
life was melancholy.[78]

[Footnote 77: Giov. Imperiale in the _Museum Historicum_ describes him
thus: 'Perpetuo moerentis et altius cogitantis gessit aspectum, _gracili
mento_, facie decolori, conniventibus cavisque oculis.']

[Footnote 78: 'La mia fiera malinconia' is a phrase which often recurs
in his letters.]

The tone of his literary work, whether in prose or poetry, is
elegiac--musically, often querulously plaintive. There rests a shadow of
dejection over all he wrote and thought and acted. Yet he was finely
sensitive to pleasure, thrillingly alive to sentimental beauty.[79]
Though the man lived purely, untainted by the license of the age, his
genius soared highest when he sang some soft luxurious strain of love.
He was wholly deficient in humor. Taking himself and the world of men
and things too much in earnest, he weighed heavily alike on art and
life. The smallest trifles, if they touched him, seemed to him
important.[80] Before imaginary terrors he shook like an aspen. The
slightest provocation roused his momentary resentment. The most
insignificant sign of neglect or coldness wounded his self-esteem.
Plaintive, sensitive to beauty, sentimental, tender, touchy,
self-engrossed, devoid of humor--what a sentient instrument was this for
uttering Aeolian melodies, and straining discords through storm-jangled
strings!

[Footnote 79: 'Questo segno mi ho proposto: piacere ed onore'
(_Lettere_, vol. v. p. 87).]

[Footnote 80: It should be said that as a man of letters he bore with
fools gladly, and showed a noble patience. Of this there is a fine
example in his controversy with Della Cruscans. He was not so patient
with the publishers and pirates of his works. No wonder, when they
robbed him so!]

From the Jesuits, in childhood, he received religious impressions which
might almost be described as mesmeric or hypnotic in their influence
upon his nerves. These abode with him through manhood; and in later
life morbid scruples and superstitious anxieties about his soul laid
hold on his imagination. Yet religion did not penetrate Tasso's nature.
As he conceived it, there was nothing solid and supporting in its
substance. Piety was neither deeply rooted nor indigenous, neither
impassioned nor logically reasoned, in the adult man.[81] What it might
have been, but for th