Dante and the early astronomers

Frontispiece
DANTE STUDYING.
From a fresco by Luca Signorelli at Orvieto.
Or vedi insieme l’uno e l’altro polo, Le stelle vaghe e lor viaggio torto; E vedi ’l veder nostro quanto è corte. Petrarch.
BY M. A. ORR (Mrs. John Evershed).
Plainness and clearness without shadow of stain, Clearness divine! Ye heavens, whose pure dark regions have no sign Of languor, though so calm, and though so great Are yet untroubled and unpassionate; Who, though so noble, share in the world’s toil, And though so tasked keep free from dust and soil!
You remain A world above man’s head, to let him see How boundless might his soul’s horizons be, How vast, yet of what clear transparency. Matthew Arnold.
London Gall and Inglis, 31 Henrietta St., W.C. And Edinburgh.
PRINTED AND BOUND BY GALL AND INGLIS, Newington Printing and Bookbinding Works, Edinburgh.

An observatory on a mountain top is an ideal place in which to write on astronomy and poetry, but it has one drawback: the difficulty of obtaining books on special subjects. My husband’s criticisms and help have been invaluable, and of books on modern astronomy there is no lack; but many others which I have wished to consult I have been unable to procure, and doubtless there are many more which I ought to have read, but of whose existence I am ignorant.