It is more satisfactory to turn to the consideration of "Intentions," and pay an enthusiastic and reverential meed of praise to this perfection of art. Marred here and there perhaps by over-elaboration and ornament, the book nevertheless remains a masterpiece. In its highest expression, where paradox and point of view were not insisted on, where pure lyric narrative fills the page, I know of nothing more lovely. "Lovely" may be an exaggerated word, yet I think that it is almost the only word which can be applied in this connection. Let me give, as an example, a few lines from the marvellous and inspired pages which treat of the Divine Comedy of Dante. Would that I could quote the whole of the supreme and splendid passages! That is impossible. But listen at least to these few lines. The poet is describing his spiritual experiences while reading the mighty harmonies of the Florentine: "On and on we go climbing the marvellous stair, and the stars become larger than their wont, and the song of the kings grows faint, and at length we reach the seven trees of gold and the garden of the Earthly Paradise. In a griffin-drawn chariot appears one whose brows are bound with olive, who is veiled in white, and mantled in green, and robed in a vesture that is coloured like live fire. The ancient flame wakes within us. Our blood quickens through terrible pulses. We recognise her. It is Beatrice, the woman we have worshipped. The ice congealed about our heart melts. Wild tears of anguish break from us, and we bow our forehead to the ground, for we know that we have sinned. When we have done penance, and are purified, and have drunk of the fountain of Lethe and bathed in the fountain of Eunoe, the mistress of our soul raises us to the Paradise of Heaven. Out of that eternal pearl, the moon, the face of Piccarda Donati leans to us. Her beauty troubles us for a moment, and when, like a thing that falls through water, she passes away, we gaze after her with wistful eyes." Do not these words strike almost the highest, purest, and most beautiful note that any writer of prose has struck throughout the centuries. In English, at least, I know of nothing more rapt and ecstatic. It is above criticism and the man who wrote it must for ever wear in our minds one of the supreme laurels that artistic achievement can bestow. One more paragraph will show the author of "Intentions" in a different mood, but yet one in which the supreme sense of beauty and of form throbs out upon the page and fills our pulses with that divine and awestruck excitement that great art can give.