Prologue

They are our past and our future; the poles between

which our desire unceasingly is discharged.

A desire in which love and hatred so perfectly oppose

themselves, that we cannot voluntarily move,

but await the extraordinary compulsion of the deluge

and the earthquake.

Their finish has inspired the limits of all arts and

ascetic movements.

Their affections and indifferences have been a guide

to all reformers and tyrants.

Their appearances in our dreams of machinery have

brought a vision of nude and fabulous epochs.

O pride so hostile to our charity.

But what their pride has retained, we may by charity

more generously recover.