Page:Dante and His Circle, with the Italian Poets Preceding Him.djvu/73

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
INTRODUCTION TO PART I.
29

slough of verbal analysis. It would seem unpardonable to make a book which should be even as these; and I have thus found myself led on to what I fear forms, by its length, an awkward intermezzo to the volume, in the hope of saying at once the most of what was to say; that so the reader may not find himself perpetually worried with footnotes during the consideration of something which may require a little peace. The glare of too many tapers is apt to render the altar-picture confused and inharmonious, even when their smoke does not obscure or deface it.