e the city walls. There his dust rests.

If it be true that much of modern Christianity traces to Dante, it is no
less true that he is the father of modern literature. He is the first
writer of worth to emerge out of that night of darkness called the
Middle Ages.

His language is tender and full of sweet, gentle imagery. He knew the
value of symbols, and his words often cast a purple shadow. His style is
pliable, flexible, fluid, and he shows rare skill in suggesting a thing
that it would be absurd to describe.

Dante was an artist in words, and in imagination a master. The history
of literature can never be written and the name of Dante left out. And
he, of all writers, both ancient and modern, most vividly portrays the
truth that without human love, there would be no such thing as poetry.

JOHN STUART MILL AND HARRIET TAYLOR

To the beloved and deplored memory of her who was the inspirer, and
in part the author, of all that is best in my writings--the friend
and wife whose exalted sense of truth and right was my strongest
incitement, and whose approbation was my chief reward--I dedicate
this volume. Like all that I have written for many years, it belongs
as much to her as to me; but the work as it stands has had, in a
very insufficient degree, the inestimable advantage of her revision;
some of the most important portions having been reserved for a more
careful examination, which they are now destined never to receive.
Were I but capable of interpreting to the world one-half the great
thoughts and noble feelings which are buried in her grave, I should
be the medium of a greater benefit to it, than is ever likely to
arise from anything that I can write, unprompted and unassisted by
her all but unrivaled wisdom.

--_Dedication to "On Liberty," by John Stuart Mill_

[Illustration: JOHN STUART MILL]

So this then is the love-story of John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor,
who first met in the year Eighteen Hundred Thirty. He was twenty-five
and a clerk in the East India House. She was twenty-three, and happily
married to a man with a double chin.

They saw each other for the first time at Mrs. Taylor's house at a
function given in honor of a Right Honorable Nobody from Essex. The
Right Honorable has gone down into the dust of forgetfulness, his very
name lost to us, like unto that of the man who fired the Alexandrian
Library.