Under the Cedars and the Stars

This work divides into considerations for the four seasons, Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer. Let us consider this consideration from Spring: "Some fifty years after the great Florentine's death, there lived in an obscure street in Ravenna one of those artists in iron and brass, of which the towns in Italy then were full. You may see their handiwork still in cathedral gates, in the iron fretwork around a shrine, in the gratings around the Sacramental altars in episcopal churches; and if you have not seen them, and entertain any lingering doubts, look up your Ruskin, and he will make you ashamed. These were the days \vhen men worked slowly and devoutly, conscious that work was prayer, and that they were laboring for the centuries, and not for mere passing bread. We cannot do it now, for we toil in the workshops of Mammon; and neither Janus, nor fame, can give the inspiration of that mother of art, called faith. Well, this artist's name was Jacopo Secconi; and he had an only child, a daughter, whose name was Beatrice, called after the great poet who had made his last home at Ravenna. The old man, for he was now old, never tired of speaking to his child of the great exile; and Bice never tired of questioning her father about Beatrice, and the wonders of Purgatory and Heaven. Once a month, however, a dark shadow would fall upon their threshold; a brother of Jacopo's, from Florence, who would come over to see his niece, for he loved her; but she did not love him. For, after the midday meal, the conversation of the two brothers invariably turned upon Dante and Florence, and Dante and Ravenna. No matter how it commenced, it veered steadily around to the everlasting topic, and on that they held directly contradictory views."