back in disgust. "Help to do what, Longfellow?"
Longfellow leaned back, surprised.
"Foolish to try to stop something like this," Ticknor said without sympathy. "Did you know, Longfellow, that I have begun to give away my books?" He pointed with his ebony cane at the bookshelves all around the room. "I've given nearly three thousand volumes already to the new public library, piece by piece."
"A wonderful gesture, Professor," Longfellow said sincerely.
"Piece by piece until I fear I shall have nothing left of myself." He pushed down into his plush rug with his shiny black scepter. A wry part-smile, part-scowl stirred his tired mouth. "My very first memory of my life is the death of Washington. My father when he came home that day could not speak, so overcome was he with the news; I was terrified that he could be so stricken and I begged Mother to send for a doctor. For some weeks everyone, even the smallest children, wore black crepe on their sleeve. Did you ever pause to consider why it is that if you kill one person you are a murderer but if you kill a thousand you are a hero, as was Washington? I once thought to ensure the future of our literary arenas by study and instruction, by deference to tradition. Dante pleaded that his poetry carry on beyond him in a new home, and for forty years I toiled for him. The fate of literature prophesied by Mr. Emerson has come to life by the events you describe - literature that breathes life and death, that can punish, and can absolve."
"I know you cannot sanction what has happened, Professor Ticknor," Longfellow said thoughtfully. "Dante disfigured as a tool for murder and personal vengeance."
Ticknor's hands shook. "Here at last is a text of old, Longfellow, converted into a present power, a power of judgment before our eyes! No, if what you've discovered is true, when the world learns of what has happened in Boston - even if that is ten centuries from now - Dante shall not be disfigured, shall not be tainted or ruined. He will be revered as the first true creation of the American genius, the first poet to unleash the majestic power of all literature upon the unbelievers!"
"Dante wrote to remove us from times when death was incomprehensible. He wrote to give us hope for life, Professor, when we have none left, to know that our lives, our prayers, make a difference to God."
Ticknor sighed helplessly and pushed the gold-fringed sack forward. "Remember your gift, Mr. Longfellow."
Longfellow smiled. "You were the first to believe it all possible." Longfellow placed the sack of ashes in Ticknor's old hands, which grasped it greedily.
"I am too old to help anyone, Longfellow," Ticknor apologized. "But shall I give you this advice? You are not after a Lucifer - that is not the culprit you describe. Lucifer is pure dumbness when Dante finally meets him in frozen Cocytus, sobbing and mute. You see, that is how Dante triumphs over Milton - we long for Lucifer to be astounding and clever so we may defeat him, but Dante makes it more difficult. No. You are after Dante - it is Dante who decides who should be punished and where they go, what torments they suffer. It is the poet who takes those measures, yet by making himself the journeyer, he tries to make us forget: We think he too is another innocent witness to God's work."
Meanwhile in Cambridge, James Russell Lowell saw ghosts.
When he was in his easy chair with winter light streaming through, he had a distinct vision of the face of Maria, his first love, and was drawn to her by the resemblance. "By and by," he kept repeating. "By and by." She was sitting with Walter on her knee, and she said reassuringly to Lowell, "See what a fine, strong boy he is grown into."
Fanny Lowell told him that he seemed to be entranced, and she insisted that Lowell take to bed. She would fetch a doctor, or Dr. Holmes if he liked. But Lowell ignored her, because he felt so happy; he left Elmwood by the back way. He thought of how his poor mother, in the asylum, used to promise him that she was most content during her fits. Dante had said that the greatest sorrow was remembering past happiness, but Dante was wrong on that formulation - dead wrong, thought Lowell. There are no happinesses like our sad, regretful ones. Joy and sorrow