With a very few exceptions, every word in the French vocabulary comes straight from the Latin.

The stability and peace which seemed to be so firmly established by the brilliant monarchy of Francis I vanished with the terrible outbreak of the Wars of Religion.

There is something dark and wintry about the atmosphere of the later Middle Ages.

If this is dying, I don't think much of it.

English dramatic literature is, of course, dominated by Shakespeare; and it is almost inevitable that an English reader should measure the value of other poetic drama by the standards which Shakespeare has already implanted in his mind.

There are a great deal of a great many kinds of love.

Unlike the majority of the writers of his age, La Rochefoucauld was an aristocrat; and this fact gives a peculiar tone to his work.