HOW LISA LOVED THE KING (Illustrated)

Although "George Eliot" has perhaps written the best prose of any female writer it is not necessarily essential to the completeness of her genius that her poetry is equally remarkable. Nonetheless it is:

'How Lisa Loved the King' is one of the old stories of Boccaccio, told in verse. Lisa, a simple maiden of Palermo, seeing King Pedro pass by—he had just freed her country from the French yoke—falls deeply in love with him, and it so preys upon her that she becomes sick, and slowly fades away. At last, when about to die, she conveys her secret to the King through a minstrel. The King comes to see her, and she recovers health again. It is a simple and pretty story, prettily told and happily catches the spirit and something of the note of Provençal song. It transports the reader to a court like that of King René, and to a world to which the Golden Age is restored, where Arcadian dreams are realized, and where all pleasures are permissible since all desire is virtuous. What song is to Armgart, music to Jubal, and devotion to Agatha, love is to Lisa, and the manner in which utterance is given to her aspiration is very fanciful and delicate.

This volume has some very excellent illustrations from original designs.