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When these Southern races coalesce to form the
great alliance which I foresee, when the Mediterranean basin is once
more the centre of human activity as it deserves to be, some such plan
will doubtless be adopted."
"Your notion would suit me down to the ground," said the bishop, who
was a good Latinist. "I would love to converse in the old style with a
student from Salamanca or Bergen or Khieff or Padua or--"
Don Francesco gave utterance to some wholly unintelligible speech. Then
he observed:
"The student might not be able to catch your meaning, Mr. Heard. I was
only talking Latin! You see, we would be obliged to standardize our
pronunciation. I wonder, by the way, why the old scholars' language was
ever discarded?"
"Patriotism destroyed it," replied the Count. "That narrow modern
patriotism of the cock-on-the-dung-hill type."
Mr. Keith began:
"It is an atavistic and altogether discreditable phenomenon--this recent
recrudescence of monarchical principles--"
"What did you promise about long words?" playfully enquired the
Duchess, who had just returned.


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