On heroes, hero-worship, and the heroic in history . l soul looking-out so stern, implacable, grim-trenchant, as from imprisonment of thick-ribbed ice!Withal it is a silent pain too, a silent scornful one:the lip is curled in a kind of godlike disdain of thething that is eating-out his heart, — as if it werewithal a mean insignificant thing, as if he whom it hadpower to torture and strangle were greater than face of one wholly in protest, and life-long unsur-rendering battle, against the world. Affection allconverted into indignation : an implacable indignation ;slow, equable, silent, l
On heroes, hero-worship, and the heroic in history . l soul looking-out so stern, implacable, grim-trenchant, as from imprisonment of thick-ribbed ice!Withal it is a silent pain too, a silent scornful one:the lip is curled in a kind of godlike disdain of thething that is eating-out his heart, — as if it werewithal a mean insignificant thing, as if he whom it hadpower to torture and strangle were greater than face of one wholly in protest, and life-long unsur-rendering battle, against the world. Affection allconverted into indignation : an implacable indignation ;slow, equable, silent, like that of a god! The eye too,it looks-out as in a kind of surprise, a kind of the world was of such a sort ? This is Dante :so he looks, this voice of ten silent centuries, andsings us his mystic unfathomable song. The little that we know of Dantes ^ Life correspondswell enough with this Portrait and this Book. He wasborn at Florence, in the upper class of society, in the ^ His full name was Durante Alighieri, called Dante DANTE ALI6HIERI The Bargello Portrait Drawn by Mr. Seymour Kirkup before it was retouched by Manni. THE HERO AS POET 119 year 1265. His education was the best then going;much school-divinity, Aristotelean logic, some Latinclassics, — no inconsiderable insight into certain pro-vinces of things : and Dante, with his earnest intelligentnature, we need not doubt, learned better than mostall that was learnable. He has a clear cultivatedunderstanding, and of great subtlety; this best fruitof education he had contrived to realise fiom thesescholastics. He knows accurately and well what liesclose to him; but, in such a time, without printedbooks or free intercourse, he could not know well whatwas distant: the small clear light, most luminous forwhat is near, breaks itself into singular chiaroscurostriking on what is far off. This was Dantes learningfrom the schools. In life, he had gone through theusual destinies ; been twice out campaign
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Keywords: ., bookauthorcar, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectheroes
