Excerpt from The Complete Works of Theophile Gautier, Vol. 6 Spirite" is a standing proof of Gautier's versatility, for the subject of the tale is not one that would usually appeal to his intense love of plastic beauty. However, the possibilities of spiritual beauty that must necessarily be expressed in terms of earthly loveliness, and the attraction he could not readily resist, combined to induce him to try his hand at writing at a tender, delicate, ideal, and dreamy poem in prose. He succeeded, as the perusal of the story conclusively proves, in creating a very lovely and winsome character, that of Lavinia d'Audefini, the maiden whose confession of love had so often been on her lips in this world, and at last made itself heard from beyond the tomb. Gautier has admirably rendered the suavity, the chastity of the young girl's unrequited affection. 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."