[136]
which employ long and sonorous
vowels, are specially well served by the amplitude of
the dactyl and the paean, feet which, although they
contain a majority of short syllables, are yet not
deficient in time-length. On the other hand, where
[p. 585]
violence is required, the requisite energy will be
best secured by the employment of the iambus, not
merely because that foot contains but two syllables,
with the result that its beat is more frequent, making
it unsuited to gentle language, but also because every
foot gives the effect of an ascent, as they climb and
swell from short to long, a fact which renders them
superior to the choreus, which sinks from long to
short.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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