Excerpt from The Vital Study of Literature: And Other EssaysThe second third of this volume consists of three studies devoted to what may be called orphic poetry, by manifest allusion to the spell-power and the mystic unintelligibility of that singer, who set the trees deep-rooted in the soil of convention, a-dancing, and caused the brute beast of greed and carnal desire to wax human and divinely sane. That myth has long been to the writer a solace and a confession of faith. In bringing out his collection of verse: Orpheus To-day, it had been given precedence of every other theme. In his view, the great poet was always a prophet of glories to come. Even a Leopardi, in his direst lyrical pessimisms, fills the reader with pride of breed, akin, as he feels himself, to so sincere and fervent a disallower of things as they are.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis 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.