26 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



day and year after year; it is a work that a mind of any literary 

 insight loves, and in which it grows; not a book to be forgotten 

 after the school days are over. 



When planning a trip abroad some of us figure very closely on 

 time and money; many interesting things have to be passed by. 

 So in planning for the hosts of young people in language-study we 

 ought to weigh what we would give for just one of their golden years. 

 It is possible for a language-loving and literature-loving teacher to 

 give a class of young people within the space of two school years 

 a possession in German including some folk-lore, a rich treasury of 

 lyrics and the first part of Faust — furnishing a very considerable 

 incentive to English studies and an invaluable contribution to the 

 wealth of life. Depend upon it, the fate of modern languages and 

 the fate of classics as studies depend on the answer to these questions : 

 How much soul stuff can they give? How much of the divine fire 

 can they kindle ? 



Before dismissing Italian let us remember that Florence is the 

 Athens of the modern world. From Florence England received the 

 Renaissance ; from Florence she received the Greek of the New Testa- 

 ment. Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, turned to Italy for 

 style and matter; the Brownings, Shelley, Keats, Byron, Landor, 

 are connecting links with Italy. 



Literature has its mountain heights, peaks accessible only to the most hardy 

 climbers. Such is Dante, separated from us by an ocean of years, veiled in the 

 mists of a foreign tongue, and rendered almost inaccessible by pitfalls of mediaeval 

 mysticism; but the successful climber finds in that mist rills of fairy music, and 

 from the summit catches glimpses of the tops of distant thoughts that other men 

 never know. 1 



Goethe's Faust is a sort of neo-Gothic glory for Germany. The 

 Divine Comedy is the Gothic glory of all Europe; it stands perfect 

 as Giotto's Campanile. Dante is the beginning of the Christian 

 love story, the foundation of modern poetry. Homer and Shake- 

 speare are the only poets in his class. Shakespeare is fortunately 

 ours, and Dante is closer to us than Homer. It is worth while to 



■ The author's Literature as Fine Art. 



