davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-05-28

following year, Florence had a sudden change of heart, and offered forgiveness to Dante and other eXiles if they would acknowledge their offences and do penance, walking in sackcloth and ashes to the Church of St. John. To this offer Dante re- turned his famous answer of lofty scorn- "Is this then,' he said, "the glorious return of Dante Alighieri to his country after nearly three lustres of suffering and exile? Did an innocence, patent to all, merit this this, the perpetual sweat and toll of study This is not the way of returning to my country; but if another can be found that shall not der0gate from the fame and honor of Dante, that 1 will enter on with no tagging steps. For if by none such Flor ence may be entered, by me then never!' And mark the beautiful proud close: 'Can l not everywhere behold the mirrors of the sun and stars, speculate on sweetest truths under any sky without first giving myself up inglOrious-nay, ignominiOus-to the popu- lace and city of Florence? Nor shall want for bread.'
 Dante, indeed, was too illustrious an exile to want for bread. In the castles and at the courts of many an Italian prince he found himself an honored guest, and Rossetti has drawn a remarkable picture in his poem of Dante at Verona,' of his sojourn at the court of young Can Grande, Prince of that
 
 Dante in his 'Paradiso'' complains,
 Yea. thou shalt learn how salt his food
 who fares
 Upon another's bread-how steep his
 path
 Who treadeth up and down another's
 stairs
 we may reflect that he must have seemed a grim and lonely figure amid all the lutes and the lovemaking, and no very comforta- ble guest.
 Arriving only to depart,
 From court to court, from land to land,
 Like flame within the naked hand
 His body bore his burning heart
 That still Florence strove to bring
 Gods fire for a burnt offering.
The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-05-28

the study of the book itself is a great spfr- itual education. But it Is a very difficult book, hard of rind, and at first bitter to the taste While its harsh strength can on oc- cas1on blossom into binding beauty, like some apparition of almond blossom out of the rock-"out of the strong came forth sweetness'-its appeal is not primarily 'poedcaP' in the usual sense. Its style is stark and unadorned
 His verse;" said his famous French com mentator Rivarol, quoted by Lowell, holds itself erect by the mere force of the sub stantiye and verb, without the help of a single epithet," and Dante himself is re- ported to have said that never a rhyme had led him to say other than he would'- two characteristics which should recon mend him to the latest school of poets.
 In addition to this austerity of style, his subject matter is superficially archaic. Dante's physical science is hopelessly "an- lfquated." In his day the world was still Ptolemaic and the earth was still regarded as the centre of the universe. Moreover, Dante not only literally believed In hell and all the scriptural revelation, but believed too, that hell was actually situated in the interior of the earth, being in shape a sort of funnel with the point downward, and reaching to the centre of the earth, which is also the centre of the universe. Purgatory rises in the form of a truncated cone on the surface of the southern hemisphere, be- ing in solid form the same shape as the hol- low funnel of he'll Heaven is ''compoSed of nine spheres enclosed by the empyrean. which itself is boundess, and is the seat of the Godhead, surrounded by the celestial hierarchy of seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominions, virtues, powers, principalities, archangels and angels. The Blessed are likewise here seated on thrones, which are arranged in the form of a rose, surround ing a lake of liquid light, in which they, gazing, see all the fulness of the glcry of God"
 To shallow readers it might seem that man who believes in so "childish'' cos mogony can have nothing to say to q world that has discovered wireless, and Milton is in the same case, for there are no auto mobiles or airships in Paradise Lost" Yet who knows but that the "certitudes'' of our modern sciences and philosophies may some day seem scarcely less childish to our de- scendants? After all, nothing changes so rapidly science from one to another. snd all mans theories of the universe are but so many Changes of the garments" of his mysterious soul.
The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-05-28

tue of this membership he held from June 15 to August 15 the office of prior" though for several years previous his voice had been masterfully heard in the councils of the city. He had also fought in the famous battle of Campaldino 12S9), in which the Ghibellines were utterly routed; but civic warfare was. soon to break out again under other names. The quarrel of the Bianchf and Neri tthe Whites and the Blacks). two noble families of PistOia, spread to Flor ence, where already the Cerchi and Donati were biting their thumbs at each other. The Donati took the side of the Blacks, the Cerchi of the Whites Pope Boniface in vain attempted mediation, but Dante and his fellow "priors'' banished the heads of the two parties in different directions from Florence. The Blacks then appealed to Charles of Valois, who with the consent of the Pope took possession of the city, with the result that eco Whites were condemned to exile Dante, with four other Whites, was summoned before the pOdesta on a trumped up charge of peculation in his office, condemned to large fine and two years exile. Dante at the time (January 2T, 13O2) was at Rome on an embassy, on setting out upon which, tradition says, he had haughtily remarked: "If I go, who remains? and if I stay, who gOes?" He ignored his sentence, and on the 10th of March following he and fourteen others were condemned tozbe burned alive should they venture within the boundaries of the wrathful republic. Dante never saw his beloved city again. Then began his wan derings, and thus, as he says in the open ing lines of the "Inferno," at the age of 37,
 In the midway of this mortal life
 I found me in a gloomy wood astray.
The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-05-28
HonorS Bestowed on
 Poet III His Lifetime

The universities of Bologna and PS1ua welcomed him, and it seems certain that he visited Paris, studying at the university and lodging in the Rue du Fouarre, thence journeyfng into the Low Countries; but that he visited Oxford is, it is to be feared, but a romantic fable. It is known for certain, however, that the last three years of his life were spent under the protection of Guido da Polenta, Lord of Ravenna. Hav- ing undertaken embassy to Venice in the service of that Prince, he caught a fever, returning through the unhealthful lagoons. and died in Bavenna on September Ii, 1921. He was buried there under a monument built by his friend Guido Ne vello, having dictated his own epitaph in Latin, of which Lowell gives this transla- ton:
 The rights of Monarchy, the Heavens, the
 Stream Of Fire, the Pit,
 In vision seen l sang as far as to the
 Fates seemed fit;
 But since my soul. alien here. hath
 flown to nobler wars,
 And happier now, hath gone to seek its
 Maker mid the stars,
 Here am I Dante shut exiled from the
 ancestral shore,
 Whom Florence. the of all least-loving
 mother bore.
 As Lowell well says, "Scarce was Dante al rest in his grave when Italy felt in stinctively that this was her great man." In vain did Cardinal Poggetto in 1929 cause
The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-05-28
Poet Always. Yearned
 For Beloved Natal City

But as Beatrice though dead still lived on in the inner shrine of his spirit, so he carried Florence in his heart every step of his pilgrimage, keeny watchful of her turbulent fortunes from afar, and enlarginS his dream of her into dream of a united northern Italy which was not to be full filled for another five hundred years. In pursuit of this he joined himself with the Ghibelline party, not from any motives of revenge, but because its character had changed. It was no longer danger to the republican cities of northern Italy. They had now nothing to fear from the nObleS, but most to fear from their own rivalries, and it seemed to Dante that their only hope of unity lay with the Ghihellines, led bX some strong prince, who. united in spiritual la rmony with the Vicar of Christ, should show for the first time to the world an eX ample of a government where the strongest force and the highest wisdom were inter- penetrated by all that God had given to the world of piety and justice "In this sense, and in no other" adds one of Dantes finest commentators. A. J. Butler, twas Dante Ghibelline" This prince he thought he de- scried in Henry of Luxemberg, who in 1908 was elected Holy Roman Emperor, and to whom he appealed in q noble letter still eX- tant, urging him, like prophet of old, ito hew the rebellious F1orentines like Agag in pieces before the Lord" This dream. held over several years. at last finally faded with Henry's death; though it fickered again with the martial successes of his friend and patron UgucciOni, who won signal victory over the Guelphs at the battle of NShte Catini August. 1315)-a victory which was the occasion of the Florentfnes once more renewing their. promise to burn alive his immortal adviser
 With Uguccioni's defeat, however. in the
The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-05-28
His Life and Pilgrimage
 Is the Pilgrimage of Mans Soul

Men and women and their lives were no less real when the medieval Duns Scotu5 pondered on. how many angels could dance on the point of needle than now, and no little of our boasted intellectual advance amounts to little more than a change in terminology. We give diffel ent names to the same things, and while Dante believed in a literal physical hell, he realized hell too condition of the soul. As Lowell says, "Its mouth yawns not only under Florence but before the feet of every man everywhere who goeth about to do evil"
 His pilgrimage, literal and local as were its terms, was still the pilgrimage of mans soul in all times and under all conditions, and his account of it, properly understood, thus remains eternally modern In one sense, indeed, Dante's Divine Comedy is most up to date" With all its rugged masculinity it is the most feminist" of poems, for it is, as Lowell says, ''in a very intimate sense, an apotheosis of woman" Beatrice is at once it's inspiration and its all prevailing spiritual essence. It Is the love of her that through all the turmoil of Dante's mortal experience dwells in his heart as q purifying flame and a guiding light till at last on the slopes of Paradise she stands awaiting him to lead him up in- to the very presence of God.
 "As soon as on my vision snote the power
 
 through
 Ere from my boyhood had yet come
 forth.
 To the left hand I turned with that rell-
 
 With which the little child runs to his
 When he has fear. when he Is af-
 fIicted."
 So, in those last exiled years al Ravenna was fulfilled that dream which Dante had so touchingly shadowed forth at the end of his "Vita Nuova'
 After writing this sonnet,'' he says, "it was given unto me to behold a very won- derful vision: wherein I saw things which determined me that I would say nothing further of this most blessed one until such time as I could discourse more worthily concerning her. And to this end I laboy all can; as she well knoweth. Wherefore if it be His pleasure through whom is tho life of all things, that my life continue with me a few years, it is my hope that I shal! yet write concerning her what hath not before been written of any woman. After the which may it seem good unto Him whe is the Master of Grace that my spiri. should go hence to behold the glory of its lady: to wit. of that blessed Beatrice who now gazeth continually on His countenance Qui est per omniG saeculd benedictus ('who Is blessed through all ages'), Ldus Deo" Never was a love story so complete as this of Dante's, and those to whom Dante of the "Inferno.' Dante the fierce patriot and prophet is too grim companion will find the loveliest of all the love books of the world in that youthful testament of the "Vita Nuova,"
 the song Which first of all he made when young.
The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-05-28
Born Goo Years Ago,
 Dante Is Still 3n Issue

Dante CDurante, by contraction Dante) degIi Alfghieri, was born at Florence in May 1oGI The exact day is not known, but it was probably about the middle music of the May" He came of an ancient fam i!y that for some generations had belonged 10 the burgher class. His father was lawyer of some account. The family name of his mother, the second wife of his fa ther, is not recorded. She is known simply as Dosfla Bella and bore her husband one son. DaAe, and a daughter. The family was in A respectable position. and Dante re ceived an excellent etlucation. embracing all the learning of his time. under the tutor ship of the famous scholar Brunette La tiui. to whom he refers with great affection, and particularly as one who had taught him how man eternizes himself" In ad- dtion to his academic studies he is sup posed to have had knowledge of draw ing-Giotto was a friend of his youth-and Browning in his famous poem One Word More'' has retold how. on the anniversary of the death of Beatrice, he ''prep;tred to paint an angel"
 Dante's own account in ..The New Life" ("Vita NuOva") runs thus: "On that day which fulfilled the year since my lady had been made of the citizens of eternal life, remembering me of her is I sat alone. be- took myself to draw the resemblance of an angel upon certain tablets. And while l did thus, chancing to turn my head. per ceived that some were standing beside me to whom I should have given courteous wei- come. and that they were observing what did also I learned afterwards that they had been there a while before I perceived
The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-05-28
One Is Poorer in Spirit
 Not to Have Read the Poem

This, of course, is far from saying, as some shallow "modernist'' critics would have it, that Dante's "Divine Comedy" is fading and negligible in literature. In one sense indeed, there is no need to read it. though, of course not to have read it is to have missed one of the most exalting expe- riences provided by books, and to be by so much the poorer. Its greatest importance Is that it was the means to an end-the presentation of a great spiritual, prophetic human being, who was also a great patriot. The most personal of books, it might be said to have served its end in making known to us Dante himself and his inspiring Story. Yet, of course, it goes without saying that
The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-05-28
Italy's Celebration of the Six Hundredth Ami versary of His Death Renews Interest in
 His Brilliant, Varied Career
By RICHARD LIE GALLIENNE.

them Percefving whom. I arose from salu- tatiOn. and said: Another was with me- ," His friendship with the musician Casella met in the milder shades of purga tory' suggests a knowledge of music also. The poets Guido Cavalcanti, and Cino of Pistora. were his intimate friends, and generally, his youth lived amid the cul- tivated, ;IriStOcratic society characteristic of Florence His family was a part of the social life of the noble and wealthy of the city, and it was when little boy of nine. his father had taken him to q May feast given in the year 12T4 by one of the princi- pal citizens, FOeo Pontinari, that his eycs first fell on Beatrice. the daughter of his hoSt she being also at the beginning of her ninth year. he at the end of his-a fact in which Dante finds deep mystic signifi- cance- The story of that first meeting and of the whole sprfngtiLe of Dante's passion is told in the Vita Nuova'' a book filled, as none other in literature, with the awe and wonder and holiness of first love. This brief, familiar quotation from Rossettis exquisite translation, is all I may allow myself here:
 Her dress, on that day, was of a most noble color, subdued and goodly crimson, Girdled and adorned in such sort as best suited with her very tender age. At that moment, l say most truly that the spirit of life, which hath its dwelling in the secret est chamber of the heart, began to tremble so violently that the least pulses of my body shook herewith: and in trembling 1t said these words: 'Ecce deus fortior me- qui venens dominabitur mihi'-'Here is a deity stronger than I; who, coming, shall rule over me-"
The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-05-28

Poet of To-day Pays Tribute in Unmeas- ured Terms to Genius Whose Works and
 Deeds Survive the Ages

Dante's treatise De Monarchia" to be pub lfcly burned at Bologna, and propose to have his bones dug up and similarly burned. The sentiment of Italy was against him, and Florence, that had been so eager to burn him alive, was almost ready to make war against Ravenna to enshrine his sacred ashes within her gates. As we have seen, in 1850 she had sent that present of golden florins to his daughter Beatrice, and in 1873 she instituted in her university a chair for the study of the "Divina Commedia," :" of which Boccaccio was the first professor. Other cities soon followed suit and in Bo- 1ogna, Pisa, Venice, Piacenza and Milan, before the century closed, there were chairs from which distinguished professors ex- pounded his great poem. Manuscript copies of 1t were multiplied as fast as monkish scribes could engross them, for it must be remembered that Caxton and his printing press were yet hundred years or more in the future.
 Dante's Fame Belongs
 To No One City or Nation
 In 1896 Florence built him a monument and begged Ravenna again for his ashes, and again in 1929. In 1519 Michelangelo offered to build a monument for them, but Ravenna still refused to surrender them, and in Ravenna they remain till this day. True lovers of Dante will hope that there they may ever rest in peace. The city that was not worthy of him in his lifetime has no rights in his ashes, and though the refusal of Ravenna to give them up be now only ironic symbol it is one of that symbolic import which Dante himself, who was so great symbolist in his work, would surely approve. The love of Florence came too late and was from the first suspect, merely following the posthumous fame of that strong soul whom in life 1t had only helped to strengthen by the bitter ness of its hate. Long before his death, despite his love for Florence, which, as he said, he could like other exiles only revisit in dreams,'' Dante had ceased to be merely q Florentine, ceased to be either Guelph or Ghibelline. withdrawn from all political parties. become. KS strong men always must do in the end, his own party of one.
 So twill be well for thee
 A party to have made thee by myself.
 He belonged to one Italian city, but to Italy, whose final unity owes more to his strong dreaming than to all its soldier reyolutionists, great as they have been. "ls 1t possible to say" asks Butler, that the dream did not work its own realization, or to deny that the high ideal of the poet, after inspiring a few minds lofty as hisAOwn, has become embodied in the constitution of a state which acknowledges no stronger bond of union than common worship of the exile's indignant and impassioned verse?"
 As Lowell has said, "We comprehend the 'Commedia' better when we know that Dante could be an active, clear headed poli- tician and mystic at the same time"
The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-05-28
Greater in His Life
 Than in Poetry Is His Influence

It is not necessary here to discuss Dante as Literature" He is one of the very few great writers who transcend what they have written and whose final significance is in having been supremely themselves. With Dante it is the man behind the book with whom we are chiefly concerned. Carlyle was right when he wrote of him as "the poet as hero"-the man who being first of all great as man, makes use of poetry as one of the means by which he awakens his fellow human beings to a sense of the divine significance of being men and women, and to their responsibility as such. Ills "solemn song" had first and last this pur- pose. To this end Beatrice and Florence alike were symbols, and his own life also as he wandered to and fro, with the 'Divine Comedy" shaping itself, throughout all his vicissitudes for nineteen years, in his heart and brain. MT. John Cowper Powys has expressed this significance of Dante in these maSterly words:
 "In one respect Dante is, beyond doubt, the greatest poet of the world. I mean in his power of heightening the glory and the terribleness of the human race. Across the threefoId kingdom of his 'Terza Rima' passes in tragic array the whole proces- sion of human hfstory-and each figure there, each solitary person, whether of the blessed or the purged or the condemned, wears like a garment of fire the dreadful dignity of having been man! The nov ing sword point that flashes, first upon one and then upon another, amid our dim transactions, is nothing but the angry arm of human imagination, moulding life to grander issues; creating, If not discovering, sublimer laws. In conveying that thrilling sense of the momentousness of human destiny which beyond anything else certain historic names evoke, none can surpass him"
Arizona republican., 1921-05-25
The Hin

Henry Walthall is at the Hip again today in Allan Dawn's "The Splen- did Hazard" one of the finest pie lures Wslthall has ever done on the screen. Coming as it does just aft CT he has finished local engage ment on the speaking stage, it will afford many a chance to again see the artist.
 Walthall has a part in "The Splen- did Hazard" which many think his finest bit of character. acting. He plays an adventures who makes the widest kind of a flight into the South Seas to hunt for a pot of gold the may says is there.
 .The Splendid. Hazard" is aug mented for the day by the addition of a good western two reel drama
 In Missouri is coming up to fill the final two days of the week al the Hip. It features Robert War wick and is from the famous Au- gustus Thomas play. done with such suecess on the sage by the late Nat Goodwin =>sszAf2Ek
Arizona republican., 1921-05-25

tugs, that one writer said of it, Ut starts the tears so they may water the smiles and keep them growing"
 Mary, her big dog, the trick mule, her prop fish stolen for lark, the cute little kiddie she found and adopt ed, all help to make this wonder picture. If you are blase. you will delight in the newneSs of this ere alton. If you lean toward humor. Mary will hand you as many laughs in it as Chaplin in The Kid.' If you like animals, Mary's pals in this pie ture will delight you. If you love kiddies the picture will charm you.
 The Strand for the first time in its history is making cut on the mat inees for the benefit of the kiddies. The management hopes to have every little tot in the county see Mary and her pals Through the Back Door.
 On Saturday the special matinee will be given for the tots and the thes ater people and the Union auto stage line are going to invite the kiddies at the orphans home to come down at their expense and see the picture.
 And then, just to make a real nov city, Mary also will be seen in the very first picture she ever made. II was filmed 15 years ago, and the contrast between this old one and the very latest will show what has been done in pictures in Is years
 You will also see how lightly time has dealt with Mary. In Through the