The Project Gutenberg EBook of Belcaro, by Vernon Lee

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Title: Belcaro
Being Essays on Sundry Aesthetical Questions

Author: Vernon Lee

Release Date: May 12, 2010 [EBook #32337]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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BELCARO

BEING

ESSAYS ON SUNDRY AESTHETICAL QUESTIONS,

BY
VERNON LEE,
AUTHOR OF "STUDIES OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN ITALY."

LONDON:
W. SATCHELL & CO.,
12 TAVISTOCK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.

_TO_

A. MARY F. ROBINSON.

CONTENTS.
PAGE

I. THE BOOK AND ITS TITLE 1
II. THE CHILD IN THE VATICAN 17
III. ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 49
IV. FAUSTUS AND HELENA 70
V. CHAPELMASTER KREISLER 106
VI. CHERUBINO 129
VII. IN UMBRIA 156
VIII. RUSKINISM 197
IX. A DIALOGUE ON POETIC MORALITY 230
X. POSTSCRIPT OR APOLOGY 275

I have to thank the Editors of the _Cornhill_ and of _Fraser's
Magazines_, and of the _Contemporary Review_, for kind permission to
republish such of these studies as have previously appeared in print.

THE BOOK AND ITS TITLE.

TO ONE OF MY READERS--THE FIRST AND EARLIEST.

A little while ago I told you that I wished this collection of studies
to be more especially yours: so now I send it you, a bundle of proofs
and of MS., to know whether you will have it. I wish I could give you
what I have written in the same complete way that a painter would give
you one of his sketches; that a singer, singing for you alone, might
give you his voice and his art; for a dedication is but a drop of ink on
a large white sheet, and conveys but a sorry notion of property. Now,
this book is intended to be really yours; yours in the sense that, were
it impossible for more than one copy of it to exist, that one copy I
should certainly give to you. Because these studies represent