That its allegorical form belongs to a past fashion, with
which the modern mind has little sympathy, we should no more think of
denying than of whitewashing a fresco of Giotto. But we may take it as we
may nature, which is also full of double meanings, either as picture or
as parable, either for the simple delight of its beauty or as a shadow of
the spiritual world. We may take it as we may history, either for its
picturesqueness or its moral, either for the variety of its figures, or
as a witness to that perpetual presence of God in his creation of which
Dante was so profoundly sensible. He had seen and suffered much, but it
is only to the man who is himself of value that experience is valuable.
He had not looked on man and nature as most of us do, with less interest
than into the columns of our daily newspaper. He saw in them the latest
authentic news of the God who made them, for he carried everywhere that
vision washed clear with tears which detects the meaning under the mask,
and, beneath the casual and transitory, the eternal keeping its sleepless
watch. The secret of Dante's power is not far to seek. Whoever can
express _himself_ with the full force of unconscious sincerity will be
found to have uttered something ideal and universal. Dante intended a
didactic poem, but the most picturesque of poets could not escape his
genius, and his sermon sings and glows and charms in a manner that
surprises more at the fiftieth reading than the first, such variety of
freshness is in imagination.
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