Excerpt from The Author of Beltraffio, the Middle Years Greille Fane: And Other Tales But I recall, by good luck, no less vividly how much finer a sweetness than any mere Spooned-out sac charine dwelt in the fascination of the questions in volved. Treating a theme that gave much in a form that, at the best, would give little, might indeed represent a peck of troubles; yet who, none the less, beforehand, was to pronounce With authority such and such an idea anecdotic and such and such another developmental One had, for the vanity of a priori Wisdom here, only to be so constituted that to see any form of beauty, for a particular application, pro scribed or even questioned, was forthwith to covet that form more than any other and to desire the benefit of it exactly there. One had only to be reminded that for the effect of quick roundness the small smooth situation, though as intense as one will, is prudently indicated, and that for a fine complicated entangled air nothing will serve that doesn't naturally swell and bristlhne had only, I say, to be so warned off or warned on, to see forthwith no beauty for the simple thing that shouldn't, and even to perversity, enrich it, and none for the other, the comparativelyintricate, that shouldn't press it out as a mosaic. After which fashion the careful craftsman would have prepared himself the special inviting treat of scarce being able to say, at his highest infatuation, before any series, which might be the light thing weighted and which the dense thing clarified. The very attempt so to discriminate leaves him in fact at moments even a little ashamed; whereby let him Shirk here frankly certain of the issues presented by the remainder of our company - there being, inde pendently of these mystic matters, other remarks to make. Blankness overtakes me, I confess, in connexion with the brief but concentrated Greville Fane - that emerges, how concentrated I tried to make it - which must have appeared in a London Weekly journal at the beginning of the nineties but as to which I further retain only a dim warm pleasantness as of old Kensington summer hours. I re-read, ever so kindly, to the promotion of a mild aftertaste - that of a certain feverish pressure, in a cool north room resorted to in heavy London Augusts, with stray rare echoes of the town, beyond near roofs and chimneys, making harmless detona tions, and with the perception, over my page, as I felt poor Greville grow, that her scant record, to be any thing at all, would have to be a minor miracle of fore shortening. For here is exactly an illustrative case the subject, in this little composition, is develop mental enough, While the form has to make the anecdotic concession and yet who Shall say that for the right effect of a small harmony the fusion has failed We desire doubtless a more detailed notation of the behaviour of the son and daughter, and yet had I believed the right effect missed Greville Fane wouldn't have figured here. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.