[84]
It may
also be important to remark that there are degrees
of length in long syllables and of shortness in short.
Consequently, although syllables may be thought
never to involve more than two time-beats or less
than one, and although for that reason in metre all
shorts and all longs are regarded as equal to other
shorts and longs, they none the less possess some
undefinable and secret quality, which makes some
seem longer and others shorter than the normal.
Verse, on the other hand, has its own peculiar
features, and consequently some syllables may be
either long or short.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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