The Connecticut labor news., 1921-09-16
EXILED DANTE AT
 HOME EXTERNALLY
 IN MYRIAD HEARTS
Rejected by His Own as Visionary and Dreamer He Wins
 World.

Washington, Sept. I6.-On Septem- Der fl a great man came out of the past into the thoughts of men in the celebration of the sixth centenary of Dante. The central man of all the | world" Ruskin called him. Thus he | is described by one who knew him: -Four poet was of middle height his face was long, his nose aquiline, his jaw large, and the lower lip protrud- ing somewhat beyond the upper; a little stopping in the shoulders; his | eyes rather large than small; dark of complexion; his hair and beard thick, l crisp and black; and his countenance always sad and thoughtful. His gar mcnts were always dignihed; the style such as suited ripeness of years; ; like ;and his bearing, whether public or private. wonderfully composed and polished"
 "The haggard cheek" says another, 'the lips clamped together in unfal- terlng resolve, the scars of lifelong battle, and the brow whose stern out line seems the trophy of final victory, this, at least, is a face that needs no name beneath 1t.
 Dante Alighieri was born in Flor ence probably in May, 1265. In the ninth year of his age he first saw Beatrice Portinari. Beatrice was married in I287 to Messer Simone de Bardi, and died shortly after, at the age Of 24. About two years after her death Dante married Comma Donati in 1902 he was elected prior of Florence. He was condemned to ex- ile in 1902 and died in Ravenna, Sep tember II, 1921.
 Tn all libraries Dante material ;c legion and comprehensive biblio- graphies are available for the trained student. The Washington Public Li- brary has had in mind the busy and less advanced readers in displaying the Dante books in the lobby It has had in mind especially those who are always meaning to read the great books of the world but who find diff fculty in actually accomplishing 1t.
 For such readers the three slim volumes of Horton's prose transla- ton of the Divine Comedy will not seem formidable The little synopsis heading each chapter are helpful as are also the footnotes which threw points without giving the feeling, as Crother says, of little angry dog barking at the text. Longfellow's translation in verse and recent one by Henry Johnson of Yale may be read by those who prefer metrical version.
 Lowell's essay on Dante in the fourth volume of his Literary Essays with biography such as Paget Ioynbees or any of the other excel lent ones, which furnish knowledge of the times in which Dante lived, will be sufficient for an introductory story.
 The readers of limited time will spend that time more proftably in reading the poems themselves than in reading the commentaries upon them The historical references are not SO impotent as the beauty and message of the poems of which Dante says: "the literal subject of the whole work is the state of the soul after death simply considered But if the work be taken allegorically, the subject is man, as by merit or demcrit through freedom of the will he renders himself liable to the re- ward or punishment of justice" The poem Is the diary of human soul in it's journey upwards from error through repentance to atonement with God. Dante's "other world," Lowell urges us 10 remember, IS not
 in it's first conception place of de parted spirits. "It is a spiritual world whereof we become denizens by birth and citizens by adoption"
 few years we have had glimpses of