The Irish standard., 1911-06-10
Italy Past and Present a Recognized
Leader in the Arts and
Sciences.
De Vinci, Angelo, Raphael, Dante
Aquinas, a Few of Her World
Famed Sons.

science, and indeed also to a great ex-
tent sanctity, radiates it's refulgent
beams in this world-heart of Christian
ity-Italy; and moreover that it shone
most radiantly in those centuries
which stultified modern school books
used to teach us as being the Dark
Ages Objections as to immigrants
from that country, their customs, etc,
ETC., will quickly swim on the surface
of the uneducated mind regarding my
opinion. but they have no relation at
all to my thesis. The human race
nourished so to speak with the pure
Climax regal climaX-n and around
that time and locality which unques-
tionably neither before nor since it has
assembled, and it is highly problemat-
ical whether it ever will again. Since
original sin, that eternal and Internal
scourge of human nature, never has
there been anything like the ruin caus-
ed by the Reformation; and indeed had
the triple virtues of Truth, Goodness
and Beauty been never blighted by
that 10th century plague, the world
would have regained much of the hap
piness of Eden, the Golden Age, the
Elysium of life-or more truly would
be restored in Jesus Christ. In that
magnificent dome of divine splendor
shone such stars as will never again
be lustrous-St. Thomas the divine, st.
Bonaventure st. Francis, Benedict
NV, st. Catherine of Siena: with
Raphael, Michael Angelo, Leonardo da
Vinci. etc, and their numberless satel-
lites in the arts Of architecture, sculp-
ture and painting. AS to music she
seems to have her eternal throne in
the universities conservatories, schools,
homes and hearts of that fair land:
proclaim her the goddess of music. In
this connection it may be we'll for mu-
sicians to note the difference between
s the heavy material quality Of Teutonic
and alien music. and the sublime heav-
emily cadence of the immortal Verdi.
You can always tell a true artist by
the above test: for above all music is
heavenly.
Human speech is wonderful re-
corder of peoples civilization-again
remark the teutonic cultural of middle
and northern Europe, and the French
nasality, and compare both with the
round, flowing rythmical mellow ca
dences of the Italian tongue. 1t is
truly enrapturing to hear the grand
rolling finales in Italian opera set to
Italian words. Then we are asked why
not have opera in English? but I an
swer that no other tongue excepting
Latin (now dead) (and the languages
affiliated to it) can tone out the ma
jestic chords Of the muses. soul but
Italian.
or poets we have many since Dante's
time; but none in the true sense of the
word. If a poets mind cannot fly
oAouAu IAS lLlOlG I'll lHe lTlHlCS, he
is, as learned professor calls him, a
buzzer, and no poet. Tell me If you
can of any so-called poet whose wings
were not tied by the bigotry of heresy
and unbelief since Dante, the Divine's
time, and will lay down my thesis.
That Catholic writers have done good
7 o1 but j,
ton does not run counter to my theory
at all. Dante had q noble intellect
gilded with the grandeur of Divine
Faith: he used nature IS a means not
as the be-all and end-all of his high
art.
There must be unity in poetry and
to have it there it must pre-exist in
the poets mind, and as there cannot DO
any unity there without (mark YOU
welD true relation to God in thought,
deed and word, YOU can have no true
poetry except from Catholic mind.
After all such drawback is a signal
punishment of Providence seen only by
the artists eye. 1t is Il lamentable
case Of the barren fig-tree." Goddess
or half Goddess poets are at best only
writing parasitic poetry which can
only become beautiful by living on the
faith of the reader who supplies the
defect. None of the English poets that
I know of, nor the Greek nor Latin
ante Christian poets made even the
ghost of an attempt at divine art in
song, with the exception in a limited
scale of FIR. Ryan that true poetic hea~!
Of the South-God rest his SOUL But
oh! how beautifully and sublimely
does, Dante describe the three abodes
of the. next life-Heaven, Purgatory
and He'll. Truly is Dante the eagle Of
I the eternal skies.
IS Apropos of my thesis. say, it is