Beacon Lights of History, Volume 03, part 2 | Page 8

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