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among guests and family-friends a general unwillingness to move.

"Oh, hang it, girls!" would Arthur say; "the parlor is well enough, all right; let it stay as it is, and let a fellow stay where he can do as he pleases and feels at home"; and to this view of the matter would respond divers of the nice young bachelors who were Arthur's and Tom's sworn friends.

In fact, nobody wanted to stay in

our parlor now. It was a cold, correct, accomplished fact; the household fairies had left it, - and when the fairies leave a room, nobody ever feels at home in it. No pictures, curtains, no wealth of mirrors, no elegance of lounges, can in the least make up for their absence. They are a capricious little set; there are rooms where they will not stay, and rooms where they will; but no one can ever have a good time without them.

THREE CANTOS OF DANTE'S "PARADISO."

CANTO XXIII.

EVEN as a bird, 'mid the beloved leaves,
Quiet upon the nest of her sweet brood
Throughout the night, that hideth all things from us,
Who, that she may behold their longed-for looks

And find the nourishment wherewith to feed them,
In which, to her, grave labors grateful are,
Anticipates the time on open spray

And with an ardent longing waits the sun, Gazing intent, as soon as breaks the dawn: Even thus my Lady standing was, erect

And vigilant, turned round towards the zone Underneath which the sun displays least haste; So that beholding her distraught and eager,

Such I became as he is, who desiring

For something yearns, and hoping is appeased.
But brief the space from one When to the other;
From my awaiting, say I, to the seeing
The welkin grow resplendent more and more.
And Beatrice exclaimed: "Behold the hosts
Of the triumphant Christ, and all the fruit
Harvested by the rolling of these spheres!"
It seemed to me her face was all on flame;

And eyes she had so full of ecstasy
That I must needs pass on without describing.
As when in nights serene of the full moon
Smiles Trivia among the nymphs eternal

Who paint the heaven through all its hollow cope,
Saw I, above the myriads of lamps,

A sun that one and all of them enkindled,
E'en as our own does the supernal stars.
And through the living light transparent shone
The lucent substance so intensely clear
Into my sight, that I could not sustain it.

Dante is with Beatrice in the eighth circle, that of the fixed stars. She is gazing upwards, watching for the descent of the Triumph of Christ.

Under the meridian, or at noon, the shadows being shorter move slower, and therefore the sun seems less in haste.

By the beneficent influen

ees of the stars.

The old belief that the stars were fed by the light of the sun. So Milton,"Hither, as to their fountain, other stars

Repair, and in their golden urna draw light."

Here the stars are souls the sun is Christ.

O Beatrice, my gentle guide and dear!

She said to me: "That which o'ermasters thee

A virtue is which no one can resist.

There are the wisdom and omnipotence

That oped the thoroughfares 'twixt heaven and earth,
For which there erst had been so long a yearning."
As fire from out a cloud itself discharges,

Dilating so it finds not room therein,
And down, against its nature, falls to earth,
So did my mind, among those aliments
Becoming larger, issue from itself,

And what became of it cannot remember.
"Open thine eyes, and look at what I am:
Thou hast beheld such things, that strong enough
Hast thou become to tolerate my smile."
I was as one who still retains the feeling
Of a forgotten dream, and who endeavors
In vain to bring it back into his mind,
When I this invitation heard, deserving
Of so much gratitude, it never fades
Out of the book that chronicles the past.
If at this moment sounded all the tongues
That Polyhymnia and her sisters made
Most lubrical with their delicious milk,
To aid me, to a thousandth of the truth

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It would not reach, singing the holy smile,
And how the holy aspect it illumed.
And therefore, representing Paradise,
The sacred poem must perforce leap over,
Even as a man who finds his way cut off.
But whoso thinketh of the ponderous theme,
And of the mortal shoulder that sustains it,
Should blame it not, if under this it trembles.
It is no passage for a little boat

This which goes cleaving the audacious prow,
Nor for a pilot who would spare himself.
"Why does my face so much enamor thee,
That to the garden fair thou turnest not,
Which under the rays of Christ is blossoming?
There is the rose in which the Word Divine
Became incarnate; there the lilies are

By whose perfume the good way was selected."
Thus Beatrice; and I, who to her counsels
Was wholly ready, once again betook me
Unto the battle of the feeble brows.

As in a sunbeam, that unbroken passes

Through fractured cloud, ere now a meadow of flowers
Mine eyes with shadow covered have beheld,

So I beheld the multitudinous splendors
Refulgent from above with burning rays,

Beholding not the source of the effulgence.

Beatrice speaks.

The Muse of harmony and singing.

The rose is the Virgin Mary, Rosa mundi, Rosa mystica; the lilies are the Apostlcs and other saints.

The struggle between his eyes and the light.

O thou benignant power that so imprint'st them!
Thou didst exalt thyself to give more scope
There to the eyes, that were not strong enough.
The name of that fair flower I e'er invoke

Morning and evening utterly enthralled
My soul to gaze upon the greater fire.
And when in both mine eyes depicted were
The glory and greatness of the living star
Which conquers there, as here below it conquered,
Athwart the heavens descended a bright sheen
Formed in a circle like a coronal,

And cinctured it, and whirled itself about it.
Whatever melody most sweetly soundeth

On earth, and to itself most draws the soul, Would seem a cloud that, rent asunder, thunders, Compared unto the sounding of that lyre

Wherewith was crowned the sapphire beautiful, Which gives the clearest heaven its sapphire hue. "I am Angelic Love, that circle round

The joy sublime which breathes from out the bosom
That was the hostelry of our Desire;

And I shall circle, Lady of Heaven, while

Thou followest thy Son, and mak'st diviner
The sphere supreme, because thou enterest it."

Thus did the circulated melody

Seal itself up; and all the other lights
Were making resonant the name of Mary.

The regal mantle of the volumes all

Of that world, which most fervid is and living
With breath of God and with his works and ways,
Extended over us its inner curve,

So very distant, that its outward show,
There where I was, not yet appeared to me.
Therefore mine eyes did not possess the power
Of following the incoronated flame,
Which had ascended near to its own seed.
And as a little child, that towards its mother
Extends its arms, when it the milk has taken,
Through impulse kindled into outward flame,
Each of those gleams of white did upward stretch
So with its summit, that the deep affection
They had for Mary was revealed to me.
Thereafter they remained there in my sight,
Regina cæli singing with such sweetness,
That ne'er from me has the delight departed.
Oh, what exuberance is garnered up

In those resplendent coffers, which had been
For sowing here below good husbandmen !
There they enjoy and live upon the treasure
Which was acquired while weeping in the exile
Of Babylon, wherein the gold was left.

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Christ reascends, that Dante's dazzled eyes, too feeble to bear the light of his presence, may behold the splendors around him.

The greater fire is the Virgin Mary, greater than any of those remaining. She is the living star, surpassing in brightness all other souls in heaven, as she did here on earth: Stella Maris, Stella Matutina.

The Angel Gabriel, o Angelic Love

Sapphire is the color in which the old painters arrayed the Virgin.

Christ," the desire of the nations."

The regal mantle of all the volumes, or rolling orbs, of the world is the crystalline heaven, or Primum Mobile, which infolds all the others like a mantle.

The Virgin ascends to her Son.

Easter hymn to the Vir

gin.

Caring not for gold in the Babylonian exile of this life, they laid up treasures in the other.

There triumpheth beneath the exalted Son
Of God and Mary, in his victory,

Both with the ancient council and the new,
He who doth keep the keys of such a glory.

CANTO XXIV.

"O COMPANY elect to the great supper
Of the Lamb glorified, who feedeth you
So that forever full is your desire,
If by the grace of God this man foretastes
Of whatsoever falleth from your table,
Or ever death prescribes to him the time,
Direct your mind to his immense desire,

And him somewhat bedew; ye drinking are
Forever from the fount whence comes his thought."
Thus Beatrice; and those enraptured spirits

Made themselves spheres around their steadfast poles,
Flaming intensely in the guise of comets.
And as the wheels in works of horologes

Revolve so that the first to the beholder.
Motionless seems, and the last one to fly,
So in like manner did those carols, dancing
In different measure, by their affluence

Make me esteem them either swift or slow. From that one which I noted of most beauty Beheld I issue forth a fire so happy

That none it left there of a greater splendor; And around Beatrice three several times

It whirled itself with so divine a song, My fantasy repeats it not to me; Therefore the pen skips, and I write it not,

Since our imagination for such folds,

Much more our speech, is of a tint too glaring.

"O holy sister mine, who us implorest

With such devotion, by thine ardent love

St. Peter, keeper of the keys, with the holy men of the Old and the New Testament.

Beatrice speaks.

Hunger and thirst after things divine.

The grace of God.

The carol was a dance as well as a song.

St. Peter thrice encircles Beatrice, as the Angel Gabriel did the Virgin Mary in the preceding canto.

Too glaring for painting such delicate draperies of song.

St. Peter speaks to Beatrice.

Thou dost unbind me from that beautiful sphere!"

Thus, having stopped, the beatific fire

Unto my Lady did direct its breath,

Which spake in fashion as I here have said.

And she "O light eterne of the great inan
To whom our Lord delivered up the keys
He carried down of this miraculous joy,
This one examine on points light and grave,
As good bescemeth thee, about the Faith
By means of which thou on the sea didst walk.
If he loves well, and hopes well, and believes,

Is hid not from thee; for thou hast thy sight
Where everything beholds itself depicted.
But since this kingdom has made citizens
By means of the true Faith, to glorify it

"T is well he have the chance to speak thereof."

Fixed upon God, in whom

are all things reflected.

As baccalaureate arms himself, and speaks not
Until the master doth propose the question,
To argue it, and not to terminate it,

So did I arm myself with every reason,
While she was speaking, that I might be ready
For such a questioner and such profession.

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Speak on, good Christian; manifest thyself;

Say, what is Faith?" Whereat I raised my brow
Unto that light from which this was breathed forth.
Then turned I round to Beatrice, and she

Prompt signals made to me that I should pour
The water forth from my internal fountain.
"May grace, that suffers me to make confession,"
Began I, "to the great Centurion,
Cause my conceptions all to be explicit !"
And I continued: "As the truthful pen,
Father, of thy dear brother wrote of it,
Who put with thee Rome into the good way,
Faith is the substance of the things we hope for,
And evidence of those that are not seen;
And this appears to me its quiddity."
Then heard I: "Very rightly thou perceivest,
If well thou understandest why he placed it
With substances and then with evidences."
And I thereafterward: "The things profound,
That here vouchsafe to me their outward show,
Unto all eyes below are so concealed,
That they exist there only in belief,

Upon the which is founded the high hope,
And therefore takes the nature of a substance.

And it behooveth us from this belief

To reason without having other views,
And hence it has the nature of evidence."
Then heard I: "If whatever is acquired

Below as doctrine were thus understood,
No sophist's subtlety would there find place."
Thus was breathed forth from that enkindled love;
Then added: "Thoroughly has been gone over
Already of this coin the alloy and weight;
But tell me if thou hast it in thy purse?"
And I: "Yes, both so shining and so round,
That in its stamp there is no peradventure.”
Thereafter issued from the light profound

That there resplendent was : "This precious jewel,
Upon the which is every virtue founded,

Whence hadst thou it?" And I: "The large outpouring

Of the Holy Spirit, which has been diffused
Upon the ancient parchments and the new,

A syllogism is, which demonstrates it

With such acuteness, that, compared therewith,
All demonstration seems to me obtuse."

St. Peter speaks to Dante

The great Head of the Church.

In the Scholastic Philos ophy, the essence of a thing distinguishing it from a other things, was called ita quiddity: an answer to the question, Quid est ?

The Old and New Testoments.

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