Excerpt from Shadow of Dante: Being an Essay Towards Studying World, and His Pilgrimage Any acquaintance with a work so sublime must needs be better than none. A shadow may win the gaze of some who never looked upon the substance, never tasted the entrancement of this Poet's music, never entered into the depths of this Philosopher's cogitations. My plan is very simple. After in some degree setting forth what Dante's Universe is as a whole, and what autobiography and history show his life-experience to have been, I proceed to expound in greater detail - here and there unavoidably with slight repetition - the physical and moraltheories on which his Three Worlds are constructed and to narrate, now in his own words, now in a prose summary, the course of his stupendous pilgrimage. As in this narration my objects are mainly to carry on his autobiography, to study his character, to be spiritualized by his spirit and upborne on his wings - also, though subordinately, to exemplify his treatment of the subjects above enumerated, - the extracts are such as seem to me best suited to promote these ends. 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.