"from what agonies of heart and brain,

What exultations trampling on despair,

What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong,

What passionate outcry of a soul in pain,

Uprose this poem of the earth and air,

This medieval miracle of song."

His labor kept him lean for twenty years; and many a time he learned how salt his food who fares upon another's bread,—how steep his path who treadeth up and down another's stairs. But Dante saw and conquered,—realizing what he had to do, knowing how to do it, being worthy of his work. Therefore, singly among authors, he deserves the sacred epithet his countrymen apply to him,—divine.

"The Divine Comedy" is the supreme epic of the world. The supreme novel remains to be written. It is doubtful if human literary art may attain completeness more than once. But as our authors labor to embody truths of human life in arranged imagined facts, they should constantly be guided and inspired by the allurement of the ultimate ideal. The noblest work is evermore accomplished by followers of the gleam. Let us, in parting company, paraphrase the sense of a remark made centuries ago by Sir Philip Sidney,—that model of a scholar and a gentleman:—It is well to shoot our arrows at the moon; for though they may miss their mark, they will yet fly higher than if we had flung them into a bush.

Footnote 1: (return)

First published in the Contemporary Review for April, 1885; and now included in Volume XXII of the "Thistle Edition": Charles Scribner's Sons.

Footnote 2: (return)

"Mrs. Knollys" is now easily accessible in "The Short Story: Specimens Illustrating Its Development." Edited by Brander Matthews. American Book Company, 1908.

INDEX

Adam Bede, 18, 31, 113.

Addison, Joseph, xi;

Sir Roger de Coverley, xii.

Æneid, The, 156, 157, 158.

Alcott, Louisa M., 76;

Little Women, 76.

Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 134;

Marjorie Daw, 134.

Alice in Wonderland, 16.

Ambitious Guest, The, 170.

American Short Stories, 170.

Amiel, Henri-Frédéric, 7.

Andersen, Hans Christian, 9.

Angel in the House, The, 154.

An Habitation Enforced, 110.

Anna Karénina, xviii.

Arcadia, 100.

Archer, William, 6.

Ariosto, Ludovico, 99;

Orlando Furioso, 99.

Aristotle, 67, 68.

Arnold, Matthew, 180.

Assignation, The, 36.

As You Like It, 10.

At the End of the Passage, 108.

Aubignac, Abbé d', xiv, xvi;

Pratique du Théâtre, xiv.

Aurora Leigh, 154.

Austen, Jane, 4, 19, 26, 88, 127, 128, 215, 217;

Emma, 88, 127, 143;

Pride and Prejudice, 128, 143.


Bacon, Francis, 32.

Baldwin, Charles Sears, 170, 171, 176;

American Short Stories, 170.

Balfour, Graham, 52.

Balzac, Honoré de, x, xii, xiii, 53, 56, 153, 160, 180;

Eugénie Grandet, 168;

Human Comedy, 160.

Barrie, James Matthew, xx, 10, 26, 132, 133.

Beach of Falesá, The, 178.

Beowulf, 130.

Bernhardt, Sarah, 162.

Besant, Sir Walter, xxi, 35;

The Art of Fiction, 35.

Beyle, Henri, see Stendhal.

Boccaccio, Giovanni, x, 62, 99, 176;

Decameron, 62, 99, 176.

Boswell, James, 122.

Brontë, Charlotte, 11;

Jane Eyre, 11, 118, 121, 166.

Brougham, Lord, xx.

Browne, Sir Thomas, 207.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 154;

Aurora Leigh, 154.

Browning, Robert, 153.

Brunetière, Ferdinand, x, 164;

History of Classical French Literature, x.

Brushwood Boy, The, 26, 33, 200, 217.

Buffon, Comte de, 201, 212.

Bunner, Henry Cuyler, 134, 148;

A Sisterly Scheme, 148;

The Documents in the Case, 134.

Bunyan, John, 79;

Pilgrim's Progress, 63, 79.

Burbage, Richard, 162.


Calderon, 213.

Camoëns, 156;

The Lusiads, 156.

Captive, The, 90, 120.

Carlyle, Thomas, 8;

Heroes and Hero-Worship, 8.

Carmen, 169.

Carroll, Lewis, Alice in Wonderland, 16.

Cask of Amontillado, The, 140, 174.

Cervantes, x, 6, 213;

Don Quixote, xxii, 159, 213;

The Curious Impertinent, 213.

Chateaubriand, René de, 16.

Child's Dream of a Star, A, 182.

Cimabue, 97.

Collins, Wilkie, 16, 49, 73, 149;

The Moonstone, 73.

Colomba, 168.

Colvin, Sidney, 175.

Cooper, James Fenimore, xii, 26, 142, 182, 215;

Leatherstocking Tales, 215;

The Last of the Mohicans, 169;

The Spy, 142.

Coppée, François, 155;

The Strike of the Iron-Workers, 155;

The Substitute, 155.

Coquelin, Constant, 162.

Corneille, Pierre, xvi.

Crawford, F. Marion, xxi, 24;

The Novel: What It Is, 24.

Criticism and Fiction, 38, 131.

Curious Impertinent, The, 213.

Cyrano de Bergerac, 162.


Daisy Miller, 169.

Daniel Deronda, 127, 146.

D'Annunzio, Gabriele, 4, 16.

Dante Alighieri, 30, 156, 219;

The Divine Comedy, 156, 219.

Daudet, Alphonse, 77, 105, 140, 170, 182, 183;

Sapho, 17, 77;

The Elixir of the Reverend Father Gaucher, 105;

The Last Class, 170.

David Copperfield, 70.

David Swan, 63.

Deal in Cotton, A, 134.

Decameron, 62, 99, 176.

Defoe, Daniel, xi, 101, 119;

Robinson Crusoe, 101, 119.

De Quincey, Thomas, 7, 208;

The English Mail-Coach, 208.

Dickens, Charles, xvii, 21, 68, 70, 79, 102, 143, 182;

A Child's Dream of a Star, 182;

A Tale of Two Cities, 66, 144;

David Copperfield, 70;

Martin Chuzzlewit, 84;

Our Mutual Friend, 68, 94, 101, 149;

Pickwick Papers, xxii;

The Old Curiosity Shop, 102, 103.

Divine Comedy, The, 156, 219.

Documents in the Case, The, 134.

Don Quixote, xxii, 159, 213.

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, 122, 145.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Strange Case of, xix, 31, 36, 123, 178.

Dryden, John, xvi.

Dumas, Alexandre, père, xii, xx, 7, 40, 48, 142.

Du Maurier, George, 115.


Eckermann, J. P., xvi.

Egoist, The, 70, 82, 90, 110.

Elia, Essays of, 218.

Eliot, George, xiii, xx, 4, 10, 18, 23, 27, 31, 34, 39, 43, 49, 68, 70, 71, 81, 86, 87, 112, 120, 126, 127, 180, 182, 215;

Adam Bede, 18, 31, 113;

Daniel Deronda, 127, 146;

Middlemarch, 68, 77;

Romola, 25, 34, 112, 145;

Silas Marner, 27, 65;

The Mill on the Floss, 10, 86, 110.

Elixir of the Reverend Father Gaucher, The, 105.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 41, 78;

Representative Men, 78.

Emma, 88, 127, 143.

English Mail-Coach, The, 208.

Erasmus, x.

Erckmann-Chatrian, 160.

Essays of Elia, 218.

Esther, Book of, 170.

Eugénie Grandet, 168.

Evangeline, 154.

Evan Harrington, 71, 124.

Experimental Novel, The, 109.


Faerie Queene, 100, 157.

Fall of the House of Usher, The, 94, 112, 115, 140.

False Dawn, 111.

Fielding, Henry, xi, 101;

Tom Jones, xxii.

Flaubert, Gustave, xiii, 23, 24, 112;

Madame Bovary, 24;

Salammbô, 112.

Franklin, Benjamin, 78;

Autobiography of, 78.

Freytag, Gustav, xxi;

Technic of the Drama, xxi.

Froude, James Anthony, xx.

Furetière, Antoine, xiii, xiv;

Roman Bourgeois, xiii.


Gentle Boy, The, 186.

Gesta Romanorum, 62, 99.

Gil Blas, 64, 119.

Giotto, 97, 99.

Glanvill, Joseph, 190.

Goethe, J. W. von, xvi;

Conversations with Eckermann, xvi.

Goldsmith, Oliver, xi;

The Vicar of Wakefield, 82, 83.

Goncourt, Jules and Edmond de, 26.

Greene, Robert, xx.

Gummere, Francis B., xiii.


Hale, Edward Everett, 178;

The Man Without a Country, 178.

Hamlet, xv, 6, 7, 80, 162, 165.

Hardy, Thomas, 109;

Tess of the D'Ubervilles, 109.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, xiii, 5, 13, 18, 19, 25, 27, 28, 29, 36, 63, 69, 71, 144, 151, 154, 171, 176, 182, 183, 186, 188, 200, 217;

David Swan, 63;

The Ambitious Guest, 170;

The Gentle Boy, 186;

The House of the Seven Gables, 5, 25, 28;

The Marble Faun, 36, 71, 151;

The Scarlet Letter, xxii, 13, 18, 27, 34, 69, 70, 71, 142, 217;

The White Old Maid, 144.

Hedda Gabler, 144.

Hegel, G. F. W., xvi.

Henry Esmond, 25, 118.

Henry IV, 47.

Heroes and Hero-Worship, 8.

Hervieu, Paul, xx.

Homer, 72, 130, 153, 158;

The Iliad, 93, 130, 156, 158;

The Odyssey, 130.

Horace, 72.

House of the Seven Gables, The, 5, 25, 28.

Howells, William Dean, 38, 130, 131, 132;

Criticism and Fiction, 38, 131;

The Rise of Silas Lapham, 169.

Hugo, Victor, xii, xx, 23, 24, 48, 109, 141, 146;

Les Miserables, 24;

Notre Dame de Paris, 109, 141, 146, 168.

Human Comedy, 160.

Huxley, Thomas Henry, xvii.