ed, and in all
ways he was more courteous and civil than any one else."

Bruni, on the other hand, who wrote a century later describes Dante as
if he had in mind Giotto's fresco of the poet. This is Bruni's
word-picture: "He was a man of great refinement, of medium height and
a pleasant but deeply serious face. It was remarkable that although he
studied incessantly, none would have supposed from his happy manner and
youthful way of speaking that he had studied at all." However well these
pictures may visualize the poet for us, I cannot help thinking that
Dante himself, after the manner of great artists who paint their own
pictures, gives us a far better portrait of himself. What we know of him
from others is as nothing compared to the revelation he has made of
himself in his writings. For, as Dr. Zahm, in his Great Inspirers, has
said: "Dante, although the most concealing of men was, paradoxical as it
may seem, the most self-revealing." The indirect recorder of his own
life, he discloses to us an intimate view of his spiritual struggles, of
the motives which actuated him, of the passions he experienced, not to
speak of the judgments he formed upon all great questions. "So true is
this that if it were possible to meet him, we should feel that he was
an intimate friend who had never concealed anything from us--who had
discoursed with us on all subjects; science, literature, philosophy,
theology, love, poetry, happiness, the world to come and all that of
which it most imports us to have accurate knowledge." Let us then see
the man as reflected in his writings.

First of all he reveals himself as a man profoundly animated by
religion. He is not a Huysmanns or a Francois Coppee, a Brunetiere,
a Paul Bourget, forsaking the religious teachings of his youth only to
embrace them in mature life. Never for a moment did he deflect from the
Catholic doctrine, though his studies led him to the consideration of
the most subtle arguments raised against it. He was indeed the defender
and champion of faith, having no sympathy for a mind which would lose
itself in seeking the solution of the incomprehensible mysteries of
religion. So he has Virgil say:

"Insensate he who thinks with mortal ken
To pierce Infinitude which doth enfold
Three persons in one substance. Seek not, then,
O Mortal race, for reasons, but believe
And be content, for had all been seen
No need there was for Mary to conceive.
Men have ye known who thu