A Vernon Lee Anthology - Selections from the Earlier Works Made by Irene Cooper Willis - Paperback

A VERNON LEE ANTHOLOGY Selections from the earlier works made by IRENE COOPER - EXPLANATORY NOTICE - IT was an article in the New Statesman by Affable Hawk which suggested the making of a Vernon Lee Anthology. But I am afraid that the present volume will not quite answer to that friendly Critics intentions for my benefit. I imagine that he wanted such selections as might show that although my salad days were passed, alas in Victorian times before his own birth, yet I had put forth crops of sere and yellow leaves in this autumnal twentieth century, nay in this discontented post-war wintriness. This plan, however, has proved unpracticable, because my later essays have mostly been too short for such dismembering. Moreover, because the books of what I think of as the Genius Loci series, have been, or are about to be published in this self-same three-and-sixpenny edition by The Bodley vii . . . v111 Explanatory Notice Head. While, as regards whatever I have written of a heavier sort, historical or philosophical, that demanded and a demand may perhaps call forth a supply a set of selections of entirely different character intended for quite different readers. All of which considerations must explain why my friend Irene Cooper Willis has restricted her selections to my earlier writings. With which decision I am the better pleased because a half-century of writing has left in my case at least a vast heap of superannuated stuff but a heap wherein the eye of an elderly author is now and then caught by something, a page or a line or two, about which one exclaims to oneself, Can I really have written anything so good all those years ago Could I still write anything as good nowadays VERNON LEE.PLOMBIBRES-LES-BAINS. A 4gzlst I7th, 1929. CONTENTS PACE EXPLANATORY NOTICE . . vii ITALY TUSC N A O N TE S from Laurus Nobilil . . ITAL I Y N THE SUMMER f rom Belcaro . . THE C HARM O F ITALY fr om Limbo . ITALIA G N A RDEN fSr om Limbo . . ITALIANS CENE Sf rom Baldevin and Juvenilia LERICI from Hauntings . PADUA fr om Hauntings . VENICE f rom Baldwin . ROME from Belcaro . VILLA BORGHES Efr om Althea . PAPAL ROME from Juvenilia . . CANDLEMA AT S FIESOLE f rom Althea . IK UMBRIA f rom Belcaro. . THE P ORT O F RAVENNA f rom Limbo . ART IMAGINAT A IV RT E OF THE RENAISSANC Efr om Renaissance Fancies and Studies . AFFINITIES IN ART. I from Jicvenilia . AFFINITIES IN ART. I1 from Renaissance Fancies and Studies . THE O LD MASTER Sf rom Belcaro . ART AND THE SUPERNATUR AfrLo m Belcaro . ART AND THE COUNTRY f rom Laurus Nobilis . ART AND USEFULNES fSro m Laurus Nobilis . . ART AND LIFE from Belcaro . ix X Contents PACE THE NORTH THE T YN A E T NEWCASTL fEro m Juvenilia . I I 5 THE M OORS f rom Juveenika . . 119 FIFE from AltAea . . . 121 THET WEE f D rom Larcrus Nobilis . 124 GERMANY THE R HINE f rom Juvenilia v . . I31 CHRISTMA fSro m Juvenilia . . 141 MISCELLANEOUS THEIT ALIA EI N G HTEENTCHE NTUR Yfr om Juvezilia. . FORGOTTEMNE LODIE fSro m Juvenilia . SHYNES fSro m Limbo . THESE NSE OF THE PAST from Limbo . LEISUR Efr om Limbo . ACQUAINTAN W C IT E H BIRDS f rom Limbo . THE U SE O F BEAUTY fr om Latlrus Nobilis. . THE G OAT from Laums Nobilis . ASTHET LI I V C IN G f rom Laurus Nobilis ...