St Francis Xavier Academy - Xavier Yearbook (Providence, RI)

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32 THE XAVIER follow him, cross the threshold and perceive through the murky darkness ‘pierced by no star,” a vast multitude, who wailing with terror, cast themselves like the leaves in Autumn down on the shore of that great Acheron, where Charon, the ferryman, sliaggy-clieeked, with eyes of burning coal, beckons, collects, strikes the lingering, and thus, ‘‘They go over the umbered wave, and ever on the opposing bank are landed while on this side another throng still gathers,”—can we look at this, I say, and not be moved to the very centre of our being, not feel the anguish, the agony of each unfortunate spirit ? He charms the senses ;—No one can deny this after reading his description of dawn upon the waters in the first canto of the Purgatorio, the coming on of evening in the 8th and 15th cantos of the same book, and again, in the 20th of the Paradiso, the upward flight of the lark on a spring morning. We see those delightful things just as he saw them. We are aroused to keenest sympathy and experieEce the very feelings that stirred his great and noble nature. He illumines the intellect;— In canto ninth of the Purgatorio, our artist prepares a palette of rich, harmonious color and with quick strokes, paints in a series of the most vivid imagery, where each detail tells. ‘‘Thither we came : and the first mighty stair Was marble white—so polished and so smooth That I stood mirrored there as I appear. The second, darker than the darkest blue, Was formed of a rough stone, rugged and dry, Cracked lengthwise and across through all its mass. The third, whose bulk completes the topmost stair, Seemed to my gaze, of porphyry, that flamed Like blood forth bursting from a smitten vein. Thereon God’s angel planting both his feet. Sat firmly stationed on the threshold floor, Which, as I thought, was solid diamond.” But Dante is the Catholic teacher, and so in this grand conception he creates the picture and at the same time, points to the symbols, emphasizes the lessons to be learned. The first stair, ‘‘polished, smooth, marble white, ” is our soul when in the state of grace, pure and sincere ; the second, the dark slab, rugged, dry, cracked crosswise, our soul broken and contrite after sin ; the blood-red porphyry of the third stair, our soul

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THE XAVIER 31 DANTE, THE ARTIST |ANTE, the master-genius of the 1300’s, shows himself to | us myriadsided. He is philosopher, epic, poet, “one of the supreme triad,” theologian, patriot, profound scholar, and founder of that soft, sweet southern tongue, the modern Italian. While in each of these he occupies a niche peculiarly his own, there is one place in the world’s gallery of fame where as we gaze at hitn, all others of the type are lost in the distance and Dante, the artist, stands out pre-eminent. We apply the term to one skilled in the practice of the fine arts. He who has the power of depicting nature or man in any mood on canvas or other surface, is the painter; he who can make the marble or bronze seem to live and breathe for us is the sculptor ; but he, who deals with the beautiful in language who shows us nature or man in any mood, not on canvas, not in the plastic clay, but in words, clear, glowing, so that the mind can conceive as readily as the eye can see, he is the true artist, and such a one was Dante by excellence. It is in the “Divine Comedy” that he shows this magical art of his, painting for us, pictures, virile, illuminating; limning portraits with all the “admirable force of a Velasquez and the coloring of a Tintoretto.” In these magnificent delineations, he appeals to the emotions, he charms the senses, he enlightens the intellect, and speaks to the soul of the true and the good, leading her on to the very footstool of the Author of the true and the good. He appeals to the emotions ;—Can we stand with him and Virgil before the awful entrance to the Inferno, read the dread inscription upon that arch,— “Through me you pass into the city of woe : Through me you pass into eternal pain : Through me among the people lost for aye. Justice, the founder of my fabric moved : To rear me was the task of power divine, Supremest wisdom, and primeval love. Before me things create were none, save things Eternal, and eternal I endure. All hope abandon ye, who enter here.”

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THE XAVIER 33 restored to God’s friendship and burning with love ; the threshold itself of adamantine rock is the unchanging foundation upon which rests our Mother, Holy Church ; and the angel, her visible head, who cannot err. He speaks to the soul of the true and the beautiful and leads her on to know more fully the Author of all truth and beauty ;— Each part of the Paradiso does this. That sublime Paradiso, with its melody and movement, its ever-freshening joy, its superb portrait groups of “martyrs, confessors and combatants for Christ,’’ tells us over and over again that the true life must be lived here if we would enjoy the beautiful there. The Celestial Rose, in the thirtieth canto, holds us enthralled with the “wealth and perfume of its vision.’’ This marvellous flower, each petal an oder of the Blest, spreads gloriously outward towards its Sun. From within these petals, countless bees, angels, constantly fly up to the Throne and then down again to the Rose laden with light and love, “their faces all of living fire, their wings of gold : and the flower itself so white that never snow approaches the perfection.’’ This is the end. Dante can show us no more. He has brought us to the outer courts of the King, and we resolve with him,— “To make our every wish, our every will, Like to a wheel moved all ways in like wise, Obey that Love that moves the Sun and Stars.’’ Alice Gorman.