PREFACE ix 



writing. One does it in cold blood, and has to be upon one's 

 guard lest the precision of the thought should be blurred in 

 the attempt to improve expression.' On July 24 he writes : 

 1 1 have just been setting the finishing touches to my " Essays 



Speculative and Suggestive," which, by the way, Mrs. G 



says "is a very good title for a book, though it hisses like a 

 serpent, or our own family name." To be elated ... at such 

 a moment of (momentary, not permanent) delivery from a 

 load is peradventure pardonable.' The printing of the book 

 began when Symonds returned to Davos in November after 

 a visit to England. ' I find it not very easy to settle down 

 again to literary Work after all that intellectual and social 

 racket in England.' 'The longer I live, the more trouble 

 proofs give me.' 



In January 1890 Symonds had a sharp attack of influenza 

 always a serious menace to him in the permanent condition 

 of his lungs but he fought through it. On January 21 he 

 writes : ' My head, too, which suffered severely from the 

 influenza, is recovering a normal tone. Unfortunately, to 

 balance these benefits, I sprained my ankle again the other 

 day. I have cut thirty-four noble pine trees in my wood upon 

 the Seehorn, and I went to choose which I would keep for 

 planks and which I would saw up for fire-wood. Scrambling 

 about upon the huge smooth stems coated with smooth snow 

 and ice, I slipped, and have been three days lame, with arnica 

 bandages on to keep swelling down. 



* The beauty of the scene in the wood, the purity of the 

 air, the perfect stillness, the flooding sunlight, the solemn 

 giants all around, and the men at work athletically hauling 

 those unmanageable boles down chasms and ravines all this 

 was almost worth a sprain ! I have had no proofs of either 

 of my books (" An Introduction to the Study of Dante," new 

 edition, and the Essays). When I look at the proofs of the 

 Essays already here, I am almost glad that no more come. 

 This is in many ways the most important book I have written 

 for publication,' and he was not satisfied with the way the 

 work was being produced. ' You will agree that my trials 

 on the path of publication (regarding a book I set very great 



