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indicate that, in common with other literatures, she is traversing a crisis than that she is entering upon a period of decadence. Every age of letters has its own peculiar peril: that of ours is the debasement of the standard of writing to the level of imperfectly educated readers. Against this danger Italian literature should be especially protected by its close affinity to the languages of antiquity, by uniform practice and tradition ever since Dante called Love the fountain of fair speech,^[1] and by a refinement so deeply imbibed that it seems to have become a part of itself.

1. "Risponde il fonte del gentil parlare."
   —Sonnet XLII.