Home > Work > The Dante Club (The Dante Club #1)
21 " believes the world is against him. Nothing "
― Matthew Pearl , The Dante Club (The Dante Club #1)
22 " Till America has learned to love literature not as an amusement, not as mere doggerel to memorize in a college room, but for its humanizing and ennobling energy, my dear reverend president, she will not have succeeded in that high sense which alone makes a nation out of a people. That which raises it from a dead name to a living power. "
23 " When you ask one friend to dine, give him your best wine. When you ask two, the second best will do. "
24 " Now, on his way to another lecture, the very thought of entering a room full of students, who still thought it was possible to learn all about something, made him yawn. "
25 " Longfellow smiled. "A great part of the happiness of life consists not in fighting battles, my dear Lowell, but in avoiding them. A masterly retreat is in itself a victory. "
26 " We never like the smell of our own vices in other people, Holmes. Ah, let's steer here for a drink or two," Lowell suggested. "
27 " Milton was the gold standard of religious poets for English and American scholars. But Milton wrote of Hell and Heaven from above and below, respectively, not from the inside: safer advantages. "
28 " No, never mind, I didn't think so. Mead, Dante's theme is man-not a man.' Lowell said finally with a mild patience that he reserved only for students. "The Italians forever twitch at Dante's sleeves trying to make him say he is of their politics and their way of thinking. Their way indeed! To confine it to Florence or Italy is to banish it from the sympathies of mankind. We read Paradise Lost as a poem but Dante's Comedy as a chronicle of our inner lives. Do you boys know of Isaiah 38:10 "
29 " Believe that when I am at once a man's friend I am always so-nor is it so very hard to bring me to it. And though a man may enjoy himself in being my enemy, he cannot make me HIS for longer than I wish. Good afternoon." Lowell had a way of leaving a conversation with the other person needing more from him. "
30 " Lo giorno se n'andava" - Day was departing..." Dante slows his deliberation as he prepares to enter the infernal realms for the first time: "... e io sol uno" - "and only I alone..." -how lonely he felt! He has to say it three times! io, sol, uno... "m'apparecchiava a sostener la guerra, sì del cammino e sì de la pietate. "
31 " Dante is the first Christian poet, the first one whose whole system of thought is colored by a pure Christian theology. But the poem comes nearer to us than this. It is there real history of a brother man, of a tempted, purified, and at last triumphant human soul; it teaches the benign ministry of sorrow. His is the first keel that ever ventured into the silent sea of human consciousness to find a new world of poetry. He held heartbreak at bay for twenty years, and would not let himself die until he had done his task. Neither shall Longfellow. Neither shall I."Lowell turned and started to descend. "
32 " Longfellow, as he climbed up, hoped he would not be asked to speak in front of all the guests during the banquet, but if he were, he would thank his friends for bringing him along. "
33 " The mind of our country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself. "