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The numbering of volumes in the earlier set reflected
the order in which the lectures were given. In the
later version, volumes were numbered to put the subjects
in historical sequence.
Beacon Lights of History
by John Lord, LL.D.
Volume III.
Part II--Renaissance and Reformation.
CONTENTS.
DANTE.
RISE OF MODERN POETRY.
The antiquity of Poetry
The greatness of Poets
Their influence on Civilization
The true poet one of the rarest of men
The pre-eminence of Homer, Dante, Shakspeare, and Goethe
Characteristics of Dante
His precocity
His moral wisdom and great attainments
His terrible scorn and his isolation
State of society when Dante was born
His banishment
Guelphs and Ghibellines
Dante stimulated to his great task by an absorbing sentiment
Beatrice
Dante's passion for Beatrice analyzed
The worship of ideal qualities the foundation of lofty love
The mystery of love
Its exalted realism
Dedication of Dante's life-labors to the departed Beatrice
The Divine Comedy; a study
The Inferno; its graphic pictures
Its connection with the ideas of the Middle Ages
The physical hell of Dante in its connection with the Mediaeval
doctrine of Retribution
The Purgatorio; its moral wisdom
Origin of the doctrine of Purgatory
Its consolation amid the speculations of despair
The Paradiso
Its discussion of grand themes
The Divina Commedia makes an epoch in civilization
Dante's life an epic
His exalted character
His posthumous influence
GEOFFREY CHAUCER.
ENGLISH LIFE IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
The characteristics of the fourteenth century
Its great events and characters
State of society in England when Chaucer arose
His early life
His intimacy with John of Gaunt, the great Duke of Lancaster
His prosperity
His poetry
The Canterbury Tales
Their fidelity to Nature and to English life
Connection of his poetry with the formation of the English Language
The Pilgrims of the Canterbury Tales
Chaucer's views of women and of love
His description of popular sports and amusements
The preponderance of country life in the fourteenth century
Chaucer's description of popular superstitions
Of ecclesiastical abuses
His emancipation from the ideas of the Middle Ages
Peculiarities of his poetry
Chaucer's private life
The respect in which he was held
Influence of his poetry
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
MARITIME DISCOVERIES.
Marco Polo
His travels
The geographical problems of the fourteenth century
Sought to be solved by Christopher Columbus
The difficulties he had to encounter
Regarded as a visionary man
His persistence
Influence of women in great enterprises
Columbus introduced to Queen Isabella
Excuses for his opponents
The Queen favors his projects
The first voyage of Columbus
Its dangers
Discovery of the Bahama Islands
Discovery of Cuba and Hispaniola
Columbus returns to Spain
The excitement and enthusiasm produced by his discoveries
His second voyage
Extravagant expectations of Columbus
Disasters of the colonists
Decline of the popularity of Columbus
His third voyage
His arrest and disgrace
His fourth voyage
His death
Greatness of his services
Results of his discoveries
Colonization
The mines of Peru and Mexico
The effects on Europe of the rapid increase of the precious metals
True sources of national wealth
The destinies of America
Its true mission
SAVONAROLA.
UNSUCCESSFUL REFORMS.
The age of Savonarola
Revival of Classic Literature
Ecclesiastical corruptions
Religious apathy; awakened intelligence; infidel spirit
Youth of Savonarola
His piety
Begins to preach
His success at Florence
Peculiarities of his eloquence
Death of Lorenzo de Medici
Savonarola as a political leader
Denunciation of tyranny
His influence in giving a constitution to the Florentines
Difficulties of Constitution-making
His method of teaching political science
Peculiarities of the new Rule
Its great wisdom
Savonarola as reformer
As moralist
Terrible denunciation of sin in high places
A prophet of woe
Contrast between Savonarola and Luther
The sermons of Savonarola
His marvellous eloquence
Its peculiarities
The enemies of Savonarola
Savonarola persecuted
His appeal to Europe
The people desert him
Months of torment
His martyrdom
His character
His posthumous influence
MICHAEL ANGELO.
THE REVIVAL OF ART.
Michael Angelo as representative of reviving Art
Ennobling effects of Art when inspired by lofty sentiments
Brilliancy of Art in the sixteenth century
Early life of Michael Angelo
His aptitude for Art
Patronized by Lorenzo de Medici
Sculpture later in its development than Architecture
The chief works of Michael Angelo as sculptor
The peculiarity of his sculptures
Michael Angelo as painter
History of painting in the Middle Ages
Da Vinci
The frescos of the Sistine Chapel
The Last Judgment
The cartoon of the battle of Pisa
The variety as well as moral grandeur of Michael Angelo's paintings
Ennobling influence of his works
His works as architect
St. Peter's Church
Revival of Roman and Grecian Architecture
Contrasted with Gothic Architecture
Michael Angelo rescues the beauties of Paganism
Not responsible for absurdities of the Renaissance
Greatness of Michael Angelo as a man
His industry, temperance, dignity of character, love of Art for
Art's sake
His indifference to rewards and praises
His transcendent fame
MARTIN LUTHER.
THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION.
Luther's predecessors
Corruptions of the Church
Luther the man for the work of reform
His peculiarities
His early piety
Enters a Monastery
His religious experience
Made Professor of Divinity at Wittenberg
The Pope in great need of money to complete St. Peter's
Indulgences; principles on which they were based
Luther, indignant, preaches Justification by Faith
His immense popularity
Grace the cardinal principle of the Reformation
The Reformation began as a religious movement
How the defence of Luther's doctrine led to the recognition of the
supreme authority of the Scriptures
Public disputation at Leipsic between Luther and Eck
Connection between the advocacy of the Bible as a supreme authority
and the right of private judgment
Religious liberty a sequence of private judgment
Connection between religious and civil liberty
Contrast between Leo I. and Luther
Luther as reformer
His boldness and popularity
He alarms Rome
His translation of the Bible, his hymns, and other works
Summoned by imperial authority to the Diet of Worms
His memorable defence
His immortal legacies
His death and character
THOMAS CRANMER.
THE ENGLISH REFORMATION.
Importance of the English Reformation
Cranmer its best exponent
What was effected during the reign of Henry VIII.
Thomas Cromwell
Suppression of Monasteries
Their opposition to the revival of Learning
Their exceeding corruption
Their great wealth and its confiscation
Ecclesiastical courts
Sir Thomas More; his execution
Main feature of Henry VIII.'s anti-clerical measures.
Fall of Cromwell
Rise of Cranmer
His characteristics
His wise moderation
His fortunate suggestions to Henry VIII.
Made Archbishop of Canterbury
Difficulties of his position
Reforms made by the government, not by the people.
Accession of Edward VI
Cranmer's Church reforms: open communion; abolition of the Mass;
new English liturgy
Marriage among the clergy; the Forty-two Articles
Accession of Mary
Persecution of the Reformers
Reactionary measures
Arrest, weakness, and recantation of Cranmer
His noble death; his character
Death of Mary
Accession of Elizabeth, and return of exiles to England
The Elizabethan Age
Conservative reforms and conciliatory measures
The Thirty-nine Articles
Nonconformists
Their doctrines and discipline
The great Puritan controversy
The Puritans represent the popular side of the Reformation
Their theology
Their moral discipline
Their connection with civil liberty
Summary of the English Reformation
IGNATIUS LOYOLA.
RISE AND INFLUENCE OF THE JESUITS.
The counter-reformation effected by the Jesuits
Picture of the times; theological doctrines
The Monastic Orders no longer available
Ignatius Loyola
His early life
Founds a new order of Monks
Wonderful spread of the Society of Jesus
Their efficient organization
Causes of success in general
Virtues and abilities of the early Jesuits
Their devotion and bravery
Jesuit Missions
Veneration for Loyola; his "Spiritual Exercises"
Lainez
Singular obedience exacted of the members of the Society
Absolute power of the General of the Order
Voluntary submission of Jesuits to complete despotism
The Jesuits adapt themselves to the circumstances of society
Causes of the decline of their influence
Corruption of most human institutions
The Jesuits become rich and then corrupt
Esprit de corps of the Jesuits
Their doctrine of expediency
Their political intrigues
Persecution of the Protestants
The enemies they made
Madame de Pompadour
Suppression of the Order
Their return to power
Reasons why Protestants fear and dislike them
JOHN CALVIN.
PROTESTANT THEOLOGY.
John Calvin's position
His early life and precocity
Becomes a leader of Protestants
Removes to Geneva
His habits and character
Temporary exile
Convention at Frankfort
Melancthon, Luther, Calvin, and Catholic doctrines
Return to Geneva, and marriage
Calvin compared with Luther
Calvin as a legislator
His reform
His views of the Eucharist
Excommunication, etc
His dislike of ceremonies and festivals
The simplicity of the worship of God
His ideas of church government
Absence of toleration
Church and State
Exaltation of preaching
Calvin as a theologian; his Institutes
His doctrine of Predestination
His general doctrines in harmony with Mediaeval theology
His views of sin and forgiveness; Calvinism
He exacts the same authority to logical deduction from admitted
truths as to direct declarations of Scripture
Puritans led away by Calvin's intellectuality
His whole theology radiates from the doctrine of the majesty of God
and the littleness of man
To him a personal God is everything
Defects of his system
Calvin an aristocrat
His intellectual qualities
His prodigious labors
His severe characteristics
His vast influence
His immortal fame
LORD BACON.
THE NEW PHILOSOPHY.
Lord Bacon as portrayed by Macaulay
His great defects of character
Contrast made between the man and the philosopher
Bacon's youth and accomplishments
Enters Parliament
Seeks office
At the height of fortune and fame
His misfortunes
Consideration of charges against him
His counterbalancing merits
The exaltation by Macaulay of material life
Bacon made its exponent
But the aims of Bacon were higher
The true spirit of his philosophy
Deductive philosophies
His new method
Bacon's Works
Relations of his philosophy
Material science and knowledge
Comparison of knowledge with wisdom
GALILEO.
ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES.
A brilliant portent
The greatness of the sixteenth century
Artists, scholars, reformers, religious defenders
Maritime discoveries
Literary, ecclesiastical, political achievements
Youth of Galileo
His early discoveries
Genius for mathematics
Professor at Pisa
Ridicules the old philosophers; invents the thermometer
Compared with Kepler
Galileo teaches the doctrines of Copernicus.
Gives offence by his railleries and mockeries.
Theology and science
Astronomical knowledge of the Ancients
Utilization of science
Construction of the first telescope
Galileo's reward
His successive discoveries
His enemies
High scientific rank in Europe
Hostility of the Church
Galileo summoned before the Inquisition; his condemnation and
admonition
His new offences
Summoned before a council of Cardinals
His humiliation
His recantations
Consideration of his position
Greatness of mind rather than character
His confinement at Arceti
Opposition to science
His melancholy old age and blindness
Visited by John Milton; comparison of the two, when blind
Consequence of Galileo's discoveries
Later results
Vastness of the universe
Grandeur of astronomical science
BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY.
DANTE.
A.D. 1265-1321.
RISE OF MODERN POETRY.
The first great genius who aroused his country from the torpor of
the Middle Ages was a poet. Poetry, then, was the first influence
which elevated the human mind amid the miseries of a gloomy period,
if we may except the schools of philosophy which flourished in the
rising universities. But poetry probably preceded all other forms
of culture in Europe, even as it preceded philosophy and art in
Greece. The gay Provencal singers were harbingers of Dante, even
as unknown poets prepared the way for Homer. And as Homer was the
creator of Grecian literature, so Dante, by his immortal comedy,
gave the first great impulse to Italian thought. Hence poets are
great benefactors, and we will not let them die in our memories or
hearts. We crown them, when alive, with laurels and praises; and
when they die, we erect monuments to their honor. They are dear to
us, since their writings give perpetual pleasure, and appeal to our
loftiest sentiments. They appeal not merely to consecrated ideas
and feelings, but they strive to conform to the principles of
immortal art. Every great poet is as much an artist as the
sculptor or the painter: and art survives learning itself. Varro,
the most learned of the Romans, is forgotten, when Virgil is
familiar to every school-boy. Cicero himself would not have been
immortal, if his essays and orations had not conformed to the
principles of art. Even an historian who would live must be an
artist, like Voltaire or Macaulay. A cumbrous, or heavy, or
pedantic historian will never be read, even if his learning be
praised by all the critics of Germany.
Poets are the great artists of language. They even create
languages, like Homer and Shakspeare. They are the ornaments of
literature. But they are more than ornaments. They are the sages
whose sayings are treasured up and valued and quoted from age to
age, because of the inspiration which is given to them,--an insight
into the mysteries of the soul and the secrets of life. A good
song is never lost; a good poem is never buried, like a system of
philosophy, but has an inherent vitality, like the melodies of the
son of Jesse. Real poetry is something, too, beyond elaborate
versification, which is one of the literary fashions, and passes
away like other fashions unless, redeemed by something that arouses
the soul, and elevates it, and appeals to the consciousness of
universal humanity. It is the poets who make revelations, like
prophets and sages of old; it is they who invest history with
interest; like Shakspeare and Racine, and preserve what is most
vital and valuable in it. They even adorn philosophy, like
Lucretius, when he speculated on the systems of the Ionian
philosophers. They certainly impress powerfully on the mind the
truths of theology, as Watts and Cowper and Wesley did in their
noble lyrics. So that the most rapt and imaginative of men, if
artists, utilize the whole realm of knowledge, and diffuse it, and
perpetuate it in artistic forms. But real poets are rare, even if
there are many who glory in the jingle of language and the
structure of rhyme. Poetry, to live, must have a soul, and it must
combine rare things,--art, music, genius, original thought, wisdom
made still richer by learning, and, above all, a power of appealing
to inner sentiments, which all feel, yet are reluctant to express.
So choice are the gifts, so grand are the qualities, so varied the
attainments of truly great poets, that very few are born in a whole
generation and in nations that number twenty or forty millions of
people. They are the rarest of gifted men. Every nation can boast
of its illustrious lawyers, statesmen, physicians, and orators; but
they can point only to a few of their poets with pride. We can
count on the fingers of one of our hands all those worthy of poetic
fame who now live in this great country of intellectual and
civilized men, one for every ten millions. How great the pre-
eminence even of ordinary poets! How very great the pre-eminence
of those few whom all ages and nations admire!
The critics assign to Dante a pre-eminence over most of those we
call immortal. Only two or three other poets in the whole realm of
literature, ancient or modern, dispute his throne. We compare him
with Homer and Shakspeare, and perhaps Goethe, alone. Civilization
glories in Virgil, Milton, Tasso, Racine, Pope, and Byron,--all
immortal artists; but it points to only four men concerning whose
transcendent creative power there is unanimity of judgment,--
prodigies of genius, to whose influence and fame we can assign no
limits; stars of such surpassing brilliancy that we can only gaze
and wonder,--growing brighter and brighter, too, with the progress
of ages; so remarkable that no barbarism will ever obscure their
brightness, so original that all imitation of them becomes
impossible and absurd. So great is original genius, directed by
art and consecrated to lofty sentiments.
I have assumed the difficult task of presenting one of these great
lights. But I do not presume to analyze his great poem, or to
point out critically its excellencies. This would be beyond my
powers, even if I were an Italian. It takes a poet to reveal a
poet. Nor is criticism interesting to ordinary minds, even in the
hands of masters. I should make critics laugh if I were to attempt
to dissect the Divine Comedy. Although, in an English dress, it is
known to most people who pretend to be cultivated, yet it is not
more read than the "Paradise Lost" or the "Faerie Queene," being
too deep and learned for some, and understood by nobody without a
tolerable acquaintance with the Middle Ages, which it interprets,--
the superstitions, the loves, the hatreds, the ideas of ages which
can never more return. All I can do--all that is safe for me to
attempt--is to show the circumstances and conditions in which it
was written, the sentiments which prompted it, its historical
results, its general scope and end, and whatever makes its author
stand out to us as a living man, bearing the sorrows and revelling
in the joys of that high life which gave to him extraordinary moral
wisdom, and made him a prophet and teacher to all generations. He
was a man of sorrows, of resentments, fierce and implacable, but
whose "love was as transcendent as his scorn,"--a man of vast
experiences and intense convictions and superhuman earnestness,
despising the world which he sought to elevate, living isolated in
the midst of society, a wanderer and a sage, meditating constantly
on the grandest themes, lost in ecstatic reveries, familiar with
abstruse theories, versed in all the wisdom of his day and in the
history of the past, a believer in God and immortality, in rewards
and punishments, and perpetually soaring to comprehend the
mysteries of existence, and those ennobling truths which constitute
the joy and the hope of renovated and emancipated and glorified
spirits in the realms of eternal bliss. All this is history, and
it is history alone which I seek to teach,--the outward life of a
great man, with glimpses, if I can, of those visions of beauty and
truth in which his soul lived, and which visions and experiences
constitute his peculiar greatness. Dante was not so close an
observer of human nature as Shakspeare, nor so great a painter of
human actions as Homer, nor so learned a scholar as Milton; but his
soul was more serious than either,--he was deeper, more intense
than they; while in pathos, in earnestness, and in fiery emphasis
he has been surpassed only by Hebrew poets and prophets.
It would seem from his numerous biographies that he was remarkable
from a boy; that he was a youthful prodigy; that he was precocious,
like Cicero and Pascal; that he early made great attainments,
giving utterance to living thoughts and feelings, like Bacon, among
boyish companions; lisping in numbers, like Pope, before he could
write prose; different from all other boys, since no time can be
fixed when he did not think and feel like a person of maturer
years. Born in Florence, of the noble family of the Alighieri, in
the year 1265, his early education devolved upon his mother, his
father having died while the boy was very young. His mother's
friend, Brunetto Latini, famous as statesman and scholarly poet,
was of great assistance in directing his tastes and studies. As a
mere youth he wrote sonnets, such as Sordello the Troubadour would
not disdain to own. He delights, as a boy, in those inquiries
which gave fame to Bonaventura. He has an intuitive contempt for
all quacks and pretenders. At Paris he maintains fourteen
different theses, propounded by learned men, on different subjects,
and gains universal admiration. He is early selected by his native
city for important offices, which he fills with honor. In wit he
encounters no superiors. He scorches courts by sarcasms which he
can not restrain. He offends the great by a superiority which he
does not attempt to veil. He affects no humility, for his nature
is doubtless proud; he is even offensively conscious and arrogant.
When Florence is deliberating about the choice of an ambassador to
Rome, he playfully, yet still arrogantly, exclaims: "If I remain
behind, who goes? and if I go, who remains behind?" His
countenance, so austere and thoughtful, impresses all beholders
with a sort of inborn greatness; his lip, in Giotto's portrait, is
curled disdainfully, as if he lived among fools or knaves. He is
given to no youthful excesses; he lives simply and frugally. He
rarely speaks unless spoken to; he is absorbed apparently in
thought. Without a commanding physical person, he is a marked man
to everybody, even when he deems himself a stranger. Women gaze at
him with wonder and admiration, though he disdains their praises
and avoids their flatteries. Men make way for him as he passes
them, unconsciously. "Behold," said a group of ladies, as he
walked slowly by them, "there is a man who has visited hell!" To
the close of his life he was a great devourer of books, and
digested their contents. His studies were as various as they were
profound. He was familiar with the ancient poets and historians
and philosophers; he was still better acquainted with the abstruse
speculations of the schoolmen. He delighted in universities and
scholastic retreats; from the cares and duties of public life he
would retire to solitary labors, and dignify his retirement by
improving studies. He did not live in a cell, like Jerome, or a
cave, like Mohammed; but no man was ever more indebted to solitude
and meditation than he for that insight and inspiration which
communion with God and great ideas alone can give.
And yet, though recluse and student, he had great experiences with
life. He was born among the higher ranks of society. He inherited
an ample patrimony. He did not shrink from public affairs. He was
intensely patriotic, like Michael Angelo; he gave himself up to the
good of his country, like Savonarola. Florence was small, but it
was important; it was already a capital, and a centre of industry.
He represented its interests in various courts. He lived with
princes and nobles. He took an active part in all public matters
and disputations; he was even familiar with the intrigues of
parties; he was a politician as well as scholar. He entered into
the contests between Popes and Emperors respecting the independence
of Italy. He was not conversant with art, for the great sculptors
and painters had not then arisen. The age was still dark; the
mariner's compass had not been invented, chimneys had not been
introduced, the comforts of life were few. Dames of highest rank
still spent their days over the distaff or in combing flax. There
were no grand structures but cathedral churches. Life was
laborious, dismal, and turbulent. Law and order did not reign in
cities or villages. The poor were oppressed by nobles. Commerce
was small and manufactures scarce. Men lived in dreary houses,
without luxuries, on coarse bread and fruit and vegetables. The
crusades had not come to an end. It was the age of quarrelsome
popes and cruel nobles, and lazy monks and haughty bishops, and
ignorant people, steeped in gloomy superstitions, two hundred years
before America was discovered, and two hundred and fifty years
before Michael Angelo erected the dome of St. Peter's.
But there was faith in the world, and rough virtues, sincerity, and
earnestness of character, though life was dismal. Men believed in
immortality and in expiation for sin. The rising universities had
gifted scholars whose abstruse speculations have never been
rivalled for acuteness and severity of logic. There were bards and
minstrels, and chivalric knights and tournaments and tilts, and
village fetes and hospitable convents and gentle ladies,--gentle
and lovely even in all states of civilization, winning by their
graces and inspiring men to deeds of heroism and gallantry.
In one of those domestic revolutions which were so common in Italy
Dante was banished, and his property was confiscated; and he at the
age of thirty-five, about the year 1300, when Giotto was painting
portraits, was sent forth a wanderer and an exile, now poor and
unimportant, to eat the bread of strangers and climb other people's
stairs; and so obnoxious was he to the dominant party in his native
city for his bitter spirit, that he was destined never to return to
his home and friends. His ancestors, boasting of Roman descent,
belonged to the patriotic party,--the Guelphs, who had the
ascendency in his early years,--that party which defended the
claims of the Popes against the Emperors of Germany. But this
party had its divisions and rival families,--those that sided with
the old feudal nobles who had once ruled the city, and the new
mercantile families that surpassed them in wealth and popular
favor. So, expelled by a fraction of his own party that had gained
power, Dante went over to the Ghibellines, and became an adherent
of imperial authority until he died.
It was in his wanderings from court to court and castle to castle
and convent to convent and university to university, that he
acquired that profound experience with men and the world which
fitted him for his great task. "Not as victorious knight on the
field of Campaldino, not as leader of the Guelph aristocracy at
Florence, not as prior, not as ambassador," but as a wanderer did
he acquire his moral wisdom. He was a striking example of the
severe experiences to which nearly all great benefactors have been
subjected,--Abraham the exile, in the wilderness, in Egypt, among
Philistines, among robbers and barbaric chieftains; the Prince
Siddartha, who founded Buddhism, in his wanderings among the
various Indian nations who bowed down to Brahma; and, still
greater, the Apostle Paul, in his protracted martyrdom among Pagan
idolaters and boastful philosophers, in Asia and in Europe. These
and others may be cited, who led a life of self-denial and reproach
in order to spread the truths which save mankind. We naturally
call their lot hard, even though they chose it; but it is the
school of greatness. It was sad to see the wisest and best man of
his day,--a man of family, of culture, of wealth, of learning,
loving leisure, attached to his home and country, accustomed to
honor and independence,--doomed to exile, poverty, neglect, and
hatred, without those compensations which men of genius in our time
secure. But I would not attempt to excite pity for an outward
condition which developed the higher virtues,--for a thorny path
which led to the regions of eternal light. Dante may have walked
in bitter tears to Paradise, but after the fashion of saints and
martyrs in all ages of our world. He need but cast his eyes on
that emblem which was erected on every pinnacle of Mediaeval
churches to symbolize passing suffering with salvation infinite,--
the great and august creed of the age in which he lived, though now
buried amid the triumphs of an imposing material civilization whose
end is the adoration of the majesty of man rather than the majesty
of God, the wonders of creation rather than the greatness of the
Creator.
But something more was required in order to write an immortal poem
than even native genius, great learning, and profound experience.
The soul must be stimulated to the work by an absorbing and
ennobling passion. This passion Dante had; and it is as memorable
as the mortal loves of Abelard and Heloise, and infinitely more
exalting, since it was spiritual and immortal,--even the adoration
of his lamented and departed Beatrice.
I wish to dwell for a moment, perhaps longer than to some may seem
dignified, on this ideal or sentimental love. It may seem trivial
and unimportant to the eye of youth, or a man of the world, or a
woman of sensual nature, or to unthinking fools and butterflies;
but it is invested with dignity to one who meditates on the
mysteries of the soul, the wonders of our higher nature,--one of
the things which arrest the attention of philosophers.
It is recorded and attested, even by Dante himself, that at the
early age of nine he fell in love with Beatrice,--a little girl of
one of his neighbors,--and that he wrote to her sonnets as the
mistress of his devotion. How could he have written sonnets
without an inspiration, unless he felt sentiments higher than we
associate with either boys or girls? The boy was father of the
man. "She appeared to me," says the poet, "at a festival, dressed
in that most noble and honorable color, scarlet,--girded and
ornamented in a manner suitable to her age; and from that moment
love ruled my soul. And after many days had passed, it happened
that, passing through the street, she turned her eyes to the spot
where I stood, and with ineffable courtesy she greeted me; and this
had such an effect on me that it seemed I had reached the furthest
limit of blessedness. I took refuge in the solitude of my chamber;
and, thinking over what had happened to me, I proposed to write a
sonnet, since I had already acquired the art of putting words into
rhyme." This, from his "Vita Nuova," his first work, relating to
the "new life" which this love awoke in his young soul.
Thus, according to Dante's own statement, was the seed of a never-
ending passion planted in his soul,--the small beginning, so
insignificant to cynical eyes, that it would almost seem
preposterous to allude to it; as if this fancy for a little girl in
scarlet, and in a boy but nine years of age, could ripen into
anything worthy to be soberly mentioned by a grave and earnest
poet, in the full maturity of his genius,--worthy to give direction
to his lofty intellect, worthy to be the occasion of the greatest
poem the world has seen from Homer to modern times. Absurd!
ridiculous! Great rivers cannot rise from such a spring; tall
trees cannot grow from such a little acorn. Thus reasons the man
who does not take cognizance of the mighty mysteries of human life.
If anything tempted the boy to write sonnets to a little girl, it
must have been the chivalric element in society at that period,
when even boys were required to choose objects of devotion, and to
whom they were to be loyal, and whose honor they were bound to
defend. But the grave poet, in the decline of his life, makes this
simple confession, as the beginning of that sentiment which never
afterwards departed from him, and which inspired him to his
grandest efforts.
But this youthful attachment was unfortunate. Beatrice did not
return his passion, and had no conception of its force, and perhaps
was not even worthy to call it forth. She may have been beautiful;
she may have been gifted; she may have been commonplace. It
matters little whether she was intellectual or not, beautiful or
not. It was not the flesh and blood he saw, but the image of
beauty and loveliness which his own mind created. He idealized the
girl; she was to him all that he fancied. But she never encouraged
him; she denied his greetings, and even avoided his society. At
last she died, when he was twenty-seven, and left him--to use his
own expression--"to ruminate on death, and envy whomsoever dies."
To console himself, he read Boethius, and religious philosophy was
ever afterwards his favorite study. Nor did serenity come, so deep
were his sentiments, so powerful was his imagination, until he had
formed an exalted purpose to write a poem in her honor, and worthy
of his love. "If it please Him through whom all things come," said
Dante, "that my life be spared, I hope to tell such things of her
as never before have been seen by any one."
Now what inspired so strange a purpose? Was it a Platonic
sentiment, like the love of Petrarch for Laura, or something that
we cannot explain, and yet real,--a mystery of the soul in its
deepest cravings and aspirations? And is love, among mortals
generally, based on such a foundation? Is it flesh and blood we
love; is it the intellect; is it the character; is it the soul; is
it what is inherently interesting in woman, and which everybody can
see,--the real virtues of the heart and charms of physical beauty?
Or is it what we fancy in the object of our adoration, what exists
already in our own minds,--the archetypes of eternal ideas of
beauty and grace? And do all men worship these forms of beauty
which the imagination creates? Can any woman, or any man, seen
exactly as they are, incite a love which is kindred to worship?
And is any love worthy to be called love, if it does not inspire
emotions which prompt to self-sacrifice, labor, and lofty ends?
Can a woman's smiles incite to Herculean energies, and drive the
willing worshipper to Aonian heights, unless under these smiles are
seen the light of life and the blessedness of supernatural fervor?
Is there, and can there be, a perpetuity in mortal charms without
the recognition or the supposition of a moral beauty connected with
them, which alone is pure and imperishable, and which alone creates
the sacred ecstasy that revels in the enjoyment of what is divine,
or what is supposed to be divine, not in man, but in the
conceptions of man,--the ever-blazing glories of goodness or of
truth which the excited soul doth see in the eyes and expression of
the adored image? It is these archetypes of divinity, real or
fancied, which give to love all that is enduring. Destroy these,
take away the real or fancied glories of the soul and mind, and the
holy flame soon burns out. No mortal love can last, no mortal love
is beautiful, unless the visions which the mind creates are not
more or less realized in the object of it, or when a person, either
man or woman, is not capable of seeing ideal perfections. The
loves of savages are the loves of brutes. The more exalted the
character and the soul, the greater is the capacity of love, and
the deeper its fervor. It is not the object of love which creates
this fervor, but the mind which is capable of investing it with
glories. There could not have been such intensity in Dante's love
had he not been gifted with the power of creating so lofty and
beautiful an ideal; and it was this he worshipped,--not the real
Beatrice, but the angelic beauty he thought he saw in her. Why
could he not see the perfections he adored shining in other women,
who perhaps had a higher claim to them? Ah, that is the mystery!
And you cannot solve it any easier than you can tell why a flower
blooms or a seed germinates. And why was it that Dante, with his
great experience, could in later life see the qualities he adored
in no other woman than in the cold and unappreciative girl who
avoided him? Suppose she had become his wife, might he not have
been disenchanted, and his veneration been succeeded by a bitter
disappointment? Yet, while the delusion lasted, no other woman
could have filled her place; in no other woman could he have seen
such charms; no other love could have inspired his soul to make
such labors.
I would not be understood as declaring that married love must be
necessarily a disenchantment. I would not thus libel humanity, and
insult plain reason and experience. Many loves ARE happy, and burn
brighter and brighter to the end; but it is because there are many
who are worthy of them, both men and women,--because the ideal,
which the mind created, IS realized to a greater or less degree,
although the loftier the archetype, the less seldom is it found.
Nor is it necessary that perfection should be found. A person may
have faults which alienate and disenchant, but with these there may
be virtues so radiant that the worship, though imperfect, remains,--
a respect, on the whole, so great that the soul is lifted to
admiration. Who can love this perishable form, unless one sees in
it some traits which belong to superior and immortal natures? And
hence the sentiment, when pure, creates a sort of companionship of
beings robed in celestial light and exorcises those degrading
passions which belong to earth. But Dante saw no imperfections in
Beatrice: perhaps he had no opportunity to see them. His own soul
was so filled with love, his mind soared to such exalted regions of
adoration, that when she passed away he saw her only in the
beatified state, in company with saints and angels; and he was
wrapped in ecstasies which knew no end,--the unbroken adoration of
beauty, grace, and truth, even of those eternal ideas on which
Plato based all that is certain, and all that is worth living for;
that sublime realism without which life is a failure, and this
world is "a mockery, a delusion, and a snare."
This is the history and exposition of that love for Beatrice with
which the whole spiritual life of Dante is identified, and without
which the "Divine Comedy" might not have been written. I may have
given to it disproportionate attention; and it is true I might have
allegorized it, and for love of a woman I might have substituted
love for an art,--even the art of poetry, in which his soul
doubtless lived, even as Michael Angelo, his greatest fellow-
countryman, lived in the adoration of beauty, grace, and majesty.
Oh, happy and favored is the person who lives in the enjoyment of
an art! It may be humble; it may be grand. It may be music; it
may be painting, or sculpture, or architecture, or poetry, or
oratory, or landscape gardening, yea, even farming, or needle-work,
or house decoration,--anything which employs the higher faculties
of the mind, and brings order out of confusion, and takes one from
himself, from the drudgery of mechanical labors, even if it be no
higher than carving a mantelpiece or making a savory dish; for all
these things imply creation, alike the test and the reward of
genius itself, which almost every human being possesses, in some
form or other, to a greater or less degree,--one of the kindest
gifts of Deity to man.
The great artist, kindled by his visions of imperishable loveliness
in the person of his departed Beatrice, now resolves to dedicate to
her honor his great life-labor,--even his immortal poem, which
should be a transcript of his thoughts, a mirror of his life, a
record of his sorrows, a painting of his experiences, a description
of what he saw, a digest of his great meditations, a thesaurus of
the treasures of the Mediaeval age, an exposition of its great and
leading ideas in philosophy and in religion. Every great man
wishes to leave behind some monument of his labors, to bless or
instruct mankind. Any man without some form of this noble ambition
lives in vain, even if his monument be no more than a cultivated
farm rescued from wildness and sterility.
Now Dante's monument is "the marvellous, mystic, unfathomable
song," in which he sang his sorrows and his joys, revealed his
visions, and recorded the passions and sentiments of his age. It
never can be popular, because it is so difficult to be understood,
and because its leading ideas are not in harmony with those which
are now received. I doubt if anybody can delight in that poem,
unless he sympathizes with the ideas of the Middle Ages; or, at
least, unless he is familiar with them, and with the historical
characters who lived in those turbulent and gloomy times. There is
more talk and pretension about that book than any one that I know
of. Like the "Faerie Queene" or the "Paradise Lost," it is a study
rather than a recreation; one of those productions which an
educated person ought to read in the course of his life, and which
if he can read in the original, and has read, is apt to boast of,--
like climbing a lofty mountain, enjoyable to some with youth and
vigor and enthusiasm and love of nature, but a very toilsome thing
to most people, especially if old and short-winded and gouty.
In the year 1309 the first part of the "Divine Comedy," the
Inferno, was finished by Dante, at the age of forty-four, in the
tenth year of his pilgrimage, under the roof of the Marquis of
Lunigiana; and it was intrusted to the care of Fra Ilario, a monk
living on the beautiful Ligurian shores. As everybody knows, it is
a vivid, graphic picture of what was supposed to be the infernal
regions, where great sinners are punished with various torments
forever and ever. It is interesting for the excellence of the
poetry, the brilliant analyses of characters, the allusion to
historical events, the bitter invectives, the intense sarcasms, and
the serious, earnest spirit which underlies the descriptions. But
there is very little of gentleness or compassion, in view of the
protracted torments of the sufferers. We stand aghast in view of
the miseries and monsters, furies and gorgons, snakes and fires,
demons, filth, lakes of pitch, pools of blood, plains of scorching
sands, circles, and chimeras dire,--a physical hell of utter and
unspeakable dreariness and despair, awfully and powerfully
described, but still repulsive. In each of the dismal abodes, far
down in the bowels of the earth, which Dante is supposed to have
visited with Virgil as a guide, in which some infernal deity
presides, all sorts of physical tortures are accumulated, inflicted
on traitors, murderers, robbers,--men who have committed great
crimes, unpunished in their lifetime; such men as Cain, Judas,
Ugolino,--men consigned to an infamous immortality. On the great
culprits of history, and of Italy especially, Dante virtually sits
in judgment; and he consigns them equally to various torments which
we shudder to think of.
And here let me say, as a general criticism, that in the Inferno
are brought out in tremendous language the opinions of the Middle
Ages in reference to retribution. Dante does not rise above them,
with all his genius; he is not emancipated from them. It is the
rarest thing in this world for any man, however profound his
intellect and bold his spirit, to be emancipated from the great and
leading ideas of his age. Abraham was, and Moses, and the founder
of Buddhism, and Socrates, and Mohammed, and Luther; but they were
reformers, more or less divinely commissioned, with supernatural
aid in many instances to give them wisdom. But Homer was not, nor
Euripides, nor the great scholastics of the Middle Ages, nor even
popes. The venerated doctors and philosophers, prelates, scholars,
nobles, kings, to say nothing of the people, thought as Dante did
in reference to future punishment,--that it was physical, awful,
accumulative, infinite, endless; the wrath of avenging deity
displayed in pains and agonies inflicted on the body, like the
tortures of inquisitors, thus appealing to the fears of men, on
which chiefly the power of the clergy was based. Nor in these
views of endless physical sufferings, as if the body itself were
eternal and indestructible, is there the refinement of Milton, who
placed misery in the upbraidings of conscience, in mental torture
rather than bodily, in the everlasting pride and rebellion of the
followers of Satan and his fallen angels. It was these awful views
of protracted and eternal physical torments,--not the hell of the
Bible, but the hell of ingenious human invention,--which gives to
the Middle Ages a sorrowful and repulsive light, thus nursing
superstition and working on the fears of mankind, rather than on
the conscience and the sense of moral accountability. But how
could Dante have represented the ideas of the Middle Ages, if he
had not painted his Inferno in the darkest colors that the
imagination could conceive, unless he had soared beyond what is
revealed into the unfathomable and mysterious and unrevealed
regions of the second death?
After various wanderings in France and Italy, and after an interval
of three years, Dante produced the second part of the poem,--the
Purgatorio,--in which he assumes another style, and sings another
song. In this we are introduced to an illustrious company,--many
beloved friends, poets, musicians, philosophers, generals, even
prelates and popes, whose deeds and thoughts were on the whole
beneficent. These illustrious men temporarily expiate the sins of
anger, of envy, avarice, gluttony, pride, ambition,--the great
defects which were blended with virtues, and which are to be purged
out of them by suffering. Their torments are milder, and amid them
they discourse on the principles of moral wisdom. They utter noble
sentiments; they discuss great themes; they show how vain is wealth
and power and fame; they preach sermons. In these discourses,
Dante shows his familiarity with history and philosophy; he unfolds
that moral wisdom for which he is most distinguished. His scorn is
now tempered with tenderness. He shows a true humanity; he is more
forgiving, more generous, more sympathetic. He is more lofty, if
he is not more intense. He sees the end of expiations: the
sufferers will be restored to peace and joy.
But even in his purgatory, as in his hell, he paints the ideas of
his age. He makes no new or extraordinary revelations. He arrives
at no new philosophy. He is the Christian poet, after the pattern
of his age.