viii PREFACE 



the ' Memoirs of Count Carlo Gozzi,' which never interest 

 him, he says : c If I dare talk of manners, these Essays 

 certainly in my fourth manner, and will be simply atrocious 

 when they appear in print. I don't know what devil has goi 

 possession of my own style an dried its wells up.' Tl 

 devil, I think, was boredom with Gozzi, ill-health, th< 

 beginning of fresh lung trouble, and overwork in an ovei 

 stimulating atmosphere. All through the correspondence he 

 shows an unwonted anxiety and nervousness about the book. 

 He felt that he was striking out a new line. For thougl 

 in the * Introduction to a Study of Dante,' in ' Studies ii 

 the Greek Poets,' in 'Animi Figura,' and in 'Vagabundi 

 Libellus ' there are to be found both speculation and sugges- 

 tion, he had not hitherto attempted to bring before his 

 public the reasoned grounds of his faiths both moral and 

 aesthetic. The Preface to the first edition, and many passages 

 throughout the Essays, indicate his position, and show how 

 tentative he considered his attitude to be. ' To suggest ideas, 

 to stimulate reflection, is the object of a book like this.' The 

 criticism that it evoked, the care with which it has been 

 treasured, the keenness with which it is sought, prove that it 

 has clone both. 



In the spring of 1889 Symonds made a journey to Italy, 

 and in crossing the Fluela Pass, on April 12, one of the post 

 sledges met with an accident ; Symonds, running back to 

 render assistance, slipped on the frozen road and experienced 

 a nasty fall, which shook him more than he was at first 

 aware of. By June he was back again at Davos, and ' Am 

 rewriting Essays: am now doing the one on "Landscape." 

 I think it has some good writing in it. But the book will be 

 an odd collection.* Soon after this, when rushing upstairs 

 with his usual impetuosity, he sprained his right foot very 

 badly. ' The enforced quiet,' he writes on July 20, ' has 

 made me go ahead with my Essays. I have rewritten one 

 on " Style," which is a book in itself ; one on the " Principles 

 of Criticism," and one on "Landscape" : all of them tough 

 subjects with a good deal of cerebration in them of one sort 

 or another. I find rewriting always more laborious than 



