Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 edition. Excerpt: ... primal and abysmal, a living soul boundless and terrible, master and summit of all, and resuming and surpassing the Universe, such as this poet has created in literature in that section of his work called Walt Whitman. Ages will pass before that thing, so done, can be appreciated. . . .--Very truly yours, W. D. O'connor. 179.--Barone Kirkup to William Rossetti. Florence, Ponte Vecchio 2. 14 February 1868. My" dear Rossetti, -- . . . Your idea is an excellent one --a Biography of your Father, besides an Essay on his Beatrice. His life was sufficiently adventurous to be very interesting to the general public, besides his great discoveries in the philosophy of literature, of the Middle Ages in general and Dante in particular. . . . There are plenty of Italians who would be glad enough -- Pasquale Villari of Naples, Alessandro d'Ancona of Pisa, P. G. Maggi of Milan, all friends of mine. I know but little of the Florentines, and that little is not in their favour -- duplicity and vanity. They were always reckoned great diplomats. They were the enemies of Dante, and are still, for they have destroyed all the monuments of his memory that remained in Florence when I first came here forty-four years ago. What might still be saved are disgracefully neglected and falling to ruin. After their fulsome and ignorant vulgar enthusiasm for the commemoration, they have returned to their wonted indifference, and even to persecution. Their ignorant antiquarians have endeavoured to make out that Giotto's portrait is spurious --but their grounds are so absurd that they are unworthy refutation. Still, the ignorant join in the hue and cry: and so far indeed they are right, for the present repainted portrait has not a line left of Giotto's beautiful fresco, as...
