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xxiv I ntroduction
the form and dignity of a book, she had not collated them with
such standard works of recent production as Count Goblet
D'Alviella's Migrations of Symbols, and Frazer's Golden
Bough. But probably it is well that she did not. The
comprehensive generalisations of these remarkable publications
might have distracted, and even biased, her own
keen and close natural powers of observation, and would
certainly have affected the spontaneous and independent
manner in which her personal observations were carried
out, and are here placed on permanent record. As already
stated, the empirical, idiomatic method of the enquiries
she pursued, not only constitutes their characteristic charm
for the general reader, but their specific value for the
specialist in Symbolism ;
and
the pre-eminent merit of
Mrs Murray-Aynsley's volume, representing as it does the
steadfast, fruitful labours of a lifetime, is that it can be
recommended with equal confidence to them both. May
various Fate once more approve of it the truth of the
proverbial text :
2^,thJi(Jii' 1899.
—
" Dii laboribus omnia vendunt."
GEORGE BIRDWOOD.