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                                 DANTE




                          THE VISION OF DANTE

               A STORY FOR LITTLE CHILDREN AND A TALK TO
                             THEIR MOTHERS

                                  BY

                          ELIZABETH HARRISON

                            SECOND EDITION

                      ILLUSTRATED BY WALTER CRANE

             PUBLISHED BY THE CHICAGO KINDERGARTEN COLLEGE
                 ART INSTITUTE BUILDING, CHICAGO, ILL.
                                 1894

                              COPYRIGHTED
                         BY ELIZABETH HARRISON
                                 1892

                          The Lakeside Press
                  R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS CO., CHICAGO




_PREFACE._


_Is not the reason why the Divine Comedy is called a “world poem” to be
found in these significant facts: it portrays the sudden awakening of a
human soul to the consciousness of having gone astray; it shows the
loathsome nature of sin; it pictures the struggle necessary to be freed
from sin; it emphasizes that God is ready to help as soon as the soul is
ready to be helped; and at last it declares that the Vision of God will
come to the soul which perseveres in the struggle? These are the
essential truths which make the great poem of Dante one of the
masterpieces of the world of art. May not it--as well as all other truly
great things--be given to little children in a simple way?_




THE VISION OF DANTE.


I want to tell a wonderful story to you, dear children. It has been told
over and over again for six hundred years, yet people keep reading it,
and re-reading it, and wise men never tire of studying it. Many great
artists have painted pictures, and sculptors have made statues, and
musicians have composed operas, and clergymen have written sermons from
thoughts inspired by it. A great poet first gave it to the world in the
form of a grand poem which some day you may read, but I will try to tell
it to you to-day as a short story. I am afraid that you would go to
sleep if I should undertake to read the poem to you. You do not yet know
enough about life to understand it.

Once upon a time, very long ago, there was a man whose name was Dante.
He had done wrong and had wandered a long way from his home. He does not
tell us how or why. He begins by saying that he had gone to sleep in a
great forest. Suddenly he awoke, and tried to find his way out of it,
first by one path and then another; but all in vain.

Through an opening where the tall trees had not grown quite so thick, he
saw in the distance a great mountain, on the top of which the sun was
shining brightly. “Ah!” thought he to himself, “if I can but reach the
top of that mountain I am sure I can see a long way in every direction.
No woods can grow tall enough to keep me from finding my path then!” So
with fine courage he started toward the mountain, but he had not walked
far when a beautiful, spotted panther stood with glaring eyes in his
pathway. He trembled, for he knew that going forward meant that he would
be destroyed. He turned hastily aside into another path, but he had gone
only a short distance in this direction before he saw a huge lion coming
towards him. In greater haste than before he turned into still another
path. His heart was beating very fast now, and he hastened along without
taking much notice of what lay before him. Suddenly he came upon a lean
and hungry wolf, which looked as if he could devour half a dozen men.
Dante turned and fled back into the dark woods “where the sun was
silent.” He thought, “What is the use of trying to get out of this
terrible forest? There are wild beasts on every side. If I escape one I
am sure to be devoured by another; I might as well give up trying.” He
had now lost all hope.

Just at this moment he saw a man coming towards him. The face of the man
was beaming with smiles as if he had some good news to tell. Dante ran
forward to meet him, crying, “Have mercy on me, whoever you are! See
that

[Illustration: Copyrighted 1892]

beast from whom I have fled! My body is trembling yet with fright.”

The strange man, whose name was Virgil, told Dante that he had come to
help him, but that they would have to go by another path to get out of
this savage wilderness. He then explained that they must go down through
a deep, bad smelling and dark hole in the ground, and must meet with
many disagreeable things and crawl through much dirt and filth; but
after they had gone through this close, dirty tunnel, they would again
see the light, and if they had strength enough to climb, they might in
the end get to a delightful spot on the top of the mountain called the
Terrestrial Paradise, from which lovely place Dante could go home if he
wanted to.

At first Dante was afraid to go with Virgil, although he had often read
the wise and noble books which the latter had written. But when he heard
that BEATRICE, whom he had loved as he loved no one else on earth, had
come from heaven in the form of a bright Angel to urge Virgil to come to
him, his heart was so filled with joy that he at once renewed his
courage, and told Virgil to go forward, promising that he would trust
him as a guide.

They then began their perilous journey. The dark pit through which they
were to pass was the shape of an immense funnel, or a cone turned upside
down. It was so large that it reached from the surface down to the very
centre of the earth; so that though it was as twilight where they
entered, and was quite wide and airy, yet as they slowly travelled
down its rocky sides the place grew darker and narrower, and the air
more stifling, and the smell was worse than anything of which you have
ever dreamed. At times Dante nearly fainted, but Virgil put his arms
around him and held him up until he revived. I will not stop to tell you
of all the horrible experiences they went through. By and by, when you
grow to be men and women, you can read the whole poem for yourselves.

At last they reached the bottom of the foul pit; it was the very centre
of the earth, and was the darkest spot possible. Then they began to
climb through a narrow opening which they saw. They wanted to get to the
surface on the other side of the world, and again see the light of the
sun.

Dante felt as if he were escaping from a terrible plague-stricken
prison-house. The first things he looked at were four beautiful stars
shining far above his head; then he knew he was where he could get fresh
air and light, for he felt sure that where stars were to be seen air and
light could be found. They soon discovered that they were on a large
island, in the middle of which stood a great mountain. This, Virgil told
Dante was the mountain which they would have to climb.

It was Easter morning!

As they were looking about them, not knowing exactly which way to turn,
they saw an old man with a long white beard. His face was so radiant
that it reminded Dante of the stars at which he had been gazing. The old
man told them where to go to begin the ascent of the mountain. But he
said that Virgil must first get the grim and dirt off of Dante. You know
we can not very well go into dirty places without having some of the
cinders and ashes and other filth stick to us. He also kindly told them
where they could find some easily bent rushes which they could use to
gird up Dante’s long cloak, so that he might climb the better.

I think it must have been the old man’s kindness to the many strangers
who came to the island that caused his face to look so beaming as to
remind Dante of the stars. Poor Dante thought over all his past life,
how he had wandered away from his home, how he had found himself in the
gloomy woods, how he had met the fierce beasts, and last of all he
thought of the blackening dirt he had gotten on himself in coming
through the deep hole. Then he thought of his rescue from all these
evils, and the tears rolled down his cheeks. Virgil spread his hands out
upon the grass, still wet with dew from heaven, and with the moisture
thus gained he washed Dante’s face. The tears Dante was shedding helped
also to wash away the dirt.

After this they went to where the rushes were growing and gathered some
for a belt for Dante. Strange as it may sound to you, dear children, as
fast as they gathered one rush another sprang up in its place. They
bound these enchanted rushes around Dante’s waist, and he was now ready
for the upward climb and was quite eager to begin.

They turned and looked once more at the ocean. Dante’s eyes were just
beginning to get used to the sunlight. Suddenly he saw a strange white
light coming along the sea towards them. He was astonished. As it came
nearer and nearer the light grew more and more dazzling, and Dante saw
that it was a _glorious and radiant angel_! He fell upon his knees and
dropped his gaze to the ground, for the face of the angel was so bright
that he could not look upon it. The strange and beautiful being came
swiftly forward, bringing with him a small boat full of people, the very
water became resplendent with light as the boat moved swiftly through
it, yet the angel had neither oar nor sail. His shining wings, spread
high above his head, seemed to waft the boat along by some invisible
power. He landed the people, and--quick as a sunbeam, was gone.

The newly arrived souls came up to Dante and Virgil and inquired the
way, for they too were going up the steep rough mountain, around which
wound a difficult path. The end of the path no one could see. They
walked along together for a short distance, and while Virgil was
searching the ground for the right path, Dante lifted his eyes upward
and saw some people looking over a rocky wall that bordered the road on
the next bend above them. To these fellow-travellers he called for help,
as he felt sure they must have found the right road up the mountain’s
side. They gladly pointed out the spot where Virgil and Dante could find
the way, and soon our two travellers were upon it.

But now arose a serious difficulty. From the growing

[Illustration: Copyrighted 1892]

twilight they knew that night was coming on, and in this strange, new
country nobody dared travel in the dark. There were too many pitfalls
and stumbling blocks to make it safe to travel without the light of the
sun. Virgil knew that the wisest and best thing to do in hours of
darkness was to keep still and wait for more light. A man whom they had
met on the road pointed out a safe little valley where they could stay
until the sunlight came once more.

Ah, how I wish you could have seen that valley!

It was called the Valley of the Princes. As they approached it a vision
burst upon them of the loveliest spot that could be imagined. If gold
and silver and scarlet and green and blue and all the finest colors in
the world were put together into a flower garden they would not make
anything half so beautiful as was this Valley of the Princes. Not only
were the colors so fine, but the perfumes were the sweetest ever
breathed. They went quietly and slowly into the valley and sat down. The
air about them grew darker and darker as the sun set behind the
mountains.

All at once Dante heard some voices singing a gentle hymn. I think it
must have been a hymn something like our own little hymn, “Wearily at
Daylight’s Close,” for it made Dante think of the Heavenly Father, and
look up into the sky, whose only brightness was the stars shining far
above his head. As he looked he saw sweep down out of the high heavens
two glad angels of God, robed in pale shining green. Each was surrounded
with a radiance so bright that it was dazzling; both carried swords of
fire. Lightning never came from the sky more swiftly than did these two
angels. They separated as they approached the earth; one placed himself
upon the mountain on one side of the valley and the other upon the
mountain on the other side. Dante wondered what all this meant, but the
man who had told them where to find the valley was still with them. He
explained that the angels had come to protect all travellers who were
staying in the dark valley until light should come again and they could
see to go forward.

Just then Dante turned and saw a great ugly snake winding its way
silently through the grass. Quick as a flash of lightning one of the
angels descended from his high post, and, with a touch of his flaming
sword, turned the snake, which fled in dismay. Then Dante knew that the
angels had indeed been sent from heaven, and in his heart he felt very
glad that all through this dark night he might be sure of their
protecting love. He then quietly laid himself down upon the grass and
went to sleep. While sleeping he had a strange dream; an eagle of fire
seemed to be bearing him up through the air.

He awoke. It was morning; the sun was shining and the birds were
singing. Flowers were blooming all around him--and yet it was not the
same place in which he had gone to sleep. He saw on looking about him
that he was farther up the mountain side. He turned questioningly to
Virgil, who soon told him that while he had slept in the Valley of the
Princes another angel, named Lucia, had been sent from heaven to bear
him in her arms over the rough places where he could not have travelled
unaided, and that he now stood at the real entrance of the path up the
mountain.

“We must pass through that gate which you see in front of you,” said
Virgil, “and before you enter it I must tell you that there will be some
very hard climbing for you and sometimes you will grow weary and
discouraged, but be assured that it will become less painful as you
climb. The hardest part is the first part. It grows easier and easier as
you near the top, until, when you reach the Terrestrial Paradise, there
will be no longer any climbing at all. There you shall again see your
beloved Beatrice and she will reveal to you a VISION of GOD HIMSELF.”

With this they started towards the gate. Now I must tell you about this
gate, children, because it was a very peculiar gate, and some of these
days you may have to go through it yourselves. As they came near, Dante
saw that it had three broad steps leading up to it. The bottom step was
like polished marble, and so shining that you could see your face
reflected in it. Each traveller who approached it saw just how unclean
he was, or how tired, or how cross looking. The next step was a dark
purplish black step. It was cracked lengthwise and crosswise, and had a
sad look about it as if it were sorry for the reflections which it saw
in the bottom step. The third step at the top was red, so red that it
reminded Dante of blood. Above this towered the great gateway. Upon the
sill of this gate sat another wonderful angel in shining garments which
were brighter than the noon. His feet rested upon the top step.

As Dante and Virgil approached, the angel asked them what they wanted.
They told him that they wished to go through the gate in order that they
might climb the mountain. The angel leaned forward, and with the edge of
the sword which he held in his hand he printed on Dante’s forehead seven
letters. Dante knew that the seven letters stood for the seven things
that were wrong inside of his heart. Then the angel took from his side a
silver key and a golden key, and unlocking the gate with each, he let it
swing wide open on its hinges, and our two travellers passed through.

They had no sooner entered than they heard a man singing praises to God.
As they travelled along the path which wound upward, they saw upon the
rocks at their sides wonderfully carved pictures of people who had been
good and kind and always thoughtful of others instead of themselves. As
Dante looked at them they seemed to him to be the most marvellous
pictures he had ever seen. He thought within his heart, “How beautiful!”
“How beautiful!” “How I wish I could be like these people!” Then he
turned and looked down upon the rocks on which he was treading, he saw
there were more carvings upon the stones below; but these were of
people who thought of nobody but themselves--haughty people, selfish
people, and idle ones.

As Dante gazed upon them, he bowed himself lower and lower, for he
thought within himself, “I fear I am more like these people than I am
like the others.” He had been a very proud and haughty man in the past,
and now he knew how ugly and selfish that haughtiness was. As he
ascended the road, he must have prayed to God to make him more like the
beautiful and gentle people whose portraits he had seen upon the rocks
at his side. He had been walking, bent very low; all at once he
straightened himself up; he felt as if some great weight had been lifted
off his shoulders. He turned to Virgil, saying, “Master, from what heavy
thing have I been lightened?” Virgil glanced up at his forehead. Dante
stretched forth the fingers of his hand and slowly felt the letters
which the angel had placed upon his forehead. There were but six. There
had been seven. Virgil smiled, and the two passed on.

Their ears caught the sounds of voices singing in sweet tones, “Blessed
are the poor in spirit!” “Blessed are the poor in spirit!” Then Dante
knew that the other souls, too, had prayed to God to take pride and
haughtiness and selfishness out of their lives.

They passed along the higher terrace on the mountain side, and here they
saw no pictures, but heard strange, sweet voices singing through the
air. These voices were singing of the people who had been glad when
others were made happy, who had loved and praised the good in those
about them, who had rejoiced when some one else besides themselves had
been commended. The voices seemed so joyful as they told of these loving
hearts, that Dante shut his eyes and listened. Soon he heard other
voices tell of the people who had liked to talk of themselves and not of
others, who did not care to hear anybody else praised, people whom it
made unhappy to know that anybody else was happy. “Ah!” thought he to
himself, “I fear, I fear that I have been like these last people of whom
the voices tell such sad, unhappy things. How I long with all my heart
to be freed from this hateful thing, called _Envy_!” Then again he
prayed to God to help him to rejoice over the happiness of others, to be
willing to help others, and to realize that others were helping him; and
as he thought these thoughts and prayed this prayer, another burden
seemed lifted from off him, and he put his hand to his forehead and
found that another of the terrible letters was gone. He had but five
remaining on his forehead now, and already the climbing seemed easier.

They came soon to another very difficult passage in the road, and so
rough and sharp were the rocks which stood in the pathway that Dante’s
heart failed him, and he must have stopped in his onward journey up the
mountain had not another loving angel of God come from some unseen
point, and, lifting him with strong arms, carried him over the hard
place, setting him again upon his feet. I think Dante must have thanked
God for thus sending him help in his moment of

[Illustration: Copyrighted 1892]

discouragement; at any rate, he felt that he had been slothful and not
eager enough to reach the top of the mountain.

On and on he travelled, sometimes with voices in the air singing to
encourage him, sometimes with warnings coming from unknown quarters. The
very trees laden with fruit on the roadside seemed to say, “Take enough
of us, but do not eat too much; a glutton cannot see God.”

As they mounted higher and higher the landscape grew broader and
broader, and more filled with a strange new sunshine. The huge bowlders
and angry-looking rocks below, which had so frightened Dante as he began
his journey, seemed now scarcely larger than pebbles and little stones.
He smiled to think that he had ever cared for them at all. All weariness
was gone, the last of the mysterious letters had vanished from his
forehead, and the one longing of Dante’s heart was to meet again his
beautiful and beloved Beatrice, and be led by her into the presence of
the GREAT GOD OF THE UNIVERSE, who had so wonderfully and so
mysteriously sent His angels to help him on the way.

At last they reached the spot called the Terrestrial Paradise, and
there, as Virgil had told him, stood his loving Beatrice, who took him
by the hand and led him up into Heaven itself, beyond the clouds, beyond
the stars, beyond planets and worlds, even to the foot of the THRONE OF
GOD!

Of this I cannot tell you. No words of mine could make you see that
glorious vision as Dante then beheld it. Your own little hearts must be
freed from all wrong thoughts, from all evil motives, from all selfish
desires, must be filled with a love of others, and with generous
willingness to do for others, and then may come to you, too, some day,
this GREAT VISION that came to Dante.




THE VALUE OF THE STUDY OF DANTE TO MOTHERS.


The last two centuries have been largely scientific and analytic. The
effort has been to get away from the pictorial and symbolic, to get at
the _exact facts_. Yet, after each new step forward in exact thinking,
comes the reaction toward the more poetic forms of thought. The human
imagination becomes hungry and demands that it shall have its share of
intellectual food as well as the human reason. This is the secret of the
power which the world’s great poets have always exercised. They throw
essential truth back into its embodied or symbolic form, so that the
imagination may see it pictured forth even where the reasoning power is
not strong enough to grasp it in its abstract form.

The “myth” has always been the great educator of the race. The mighty
prophets and seers of the past ages have ever made use of it as a means
by which to express God’s messages to mankind.

Froebel, the apostle of childhood, illustrates to the mother how she can
give an impression of a great spiritual law by means of a certain poetic
presentation in play. He then adds:

    “Behold then in this little play
     A world-wide truth set free!
     Easily may a symbol teach
     What thy reason cannot reach.”

In fact, almost all of the kindergarten songs and stories and games have
in them an inner or symbolic meaning. They not only teach to the child
the facts of the world about him and guide him to observe accurately
such properties of matter as form, color, number, position, size, etc.,
but they give him much deeper, more significant impressions of higher
things.

One can see, at once, the direct connection between the study of the
great poets of the world--there are not more than half a dozen of
them--and the nursery and the kindergarten. The mother-heart of the race
has instinctively felt this connection, and the folk lore of the ages
has been handed down to us in nursery tale and childish legend. But the
educators of older people do not always make use of the pictured forms
of truth. The greatest educator that earth has ever known spake not unto
the multitude--except by parables. His method of teaching has never been
excelled.

The study of Dante emphasizes the value of the poetic form of
expression for the experiences of the human soul. The Divine Comedy can
be looked at in many ways, literally, politically, artistically and
ethically. We could regard it merely as the imaginary experiences of a
man who suddenly awoke and found himself in the midst of a dark wood,
who in trying to find his way out was met by a leopard, a lion and a
she-wolf. He turns back in despair to the place “where the sun is
silent,” but is met by the poet Virgil, who offers to show another way
out, and so on. These mere literal facts of the poem could not cause it
to live in the hearts of men for six hundred years.

Some commentators have explained the poem to be the political
disappointment of Dante, pouring itself out in bitter though brilliant
imagery. The leopard is Florence, the lion is France, the she-wolf is
the Papal power of Rome. But Florence and France and Rome have passed
out of their supremacy in the minds of men, and the Divine Comedy still
keeps its hold upon the affections of mankind. Some other meaning must
lie in the poem, else we would not be studying it to-day.

Is it not this? Dante is giving us an account of the soul’s
estrangement--that soul is his own soul, yet it mirrors also each soul
which has wandered “from the true path.” In fact it describes the
spiritual struggle of every soul which has felt that it was out of
harmony with the divine order. The beasts of selfishness, of pride and
of greed have stood in the way and obstructed the return to the path of
light. The great question is, How can this soul get back into the
right path? It is the old story of Adam and the fall of man retold. It
is the picture which every great poet holds up--man’s soul in a state of
estrangement, and the struggle to get back to “the peace of God which
passeth all understanding.” This will explain why the human heart for
six hundred years has read and re-read the great poem of Dante.

Marvellous and significant indeed are the lessons which we can learn
from it--lessons which can be applied every day to our own lives and the
lives of those about us, who are groping blindly in “the dark wood,” yet
who are longing to get out of their vice, or doubt, or despair. Is it
self-indulgence? Is it inordinate ambition, or is it greed of possession
(not always money possessions) which stands in the way? Must we pass
through an inferno of suffering, and learn by experience that God’s way
is the best way, or, can we learn that the way of the transgressor is
hard from this great drama; learn, as it were, by “vicarious experience”
instead of actual experience? Rightly understood, this is the office of
every great soul, to save its fellow-mortals if possible from sin and
suffering. Thus the Divine Comedy becomes the shield of Perseus in which
the terrible gorgon head of evil may be seen and comprehended without
withering or turning to stone the life that comes in contact with it.

I know of no study more helpful to mothers than this same study of
Dante. The nature of every sin is pictured forth by its symbolic
punishment. The sharp distinction between sins of impulse and sins of
intent is made, and the close connection of the will power with right
and wrong doing is clearly shown.

ELIZABETH HARRISON.









End of Project Gutenberg's The Vision of Dante, by Elizabeth Harrison