To get at the heart of books we must live with and in them; we must
make them our constant companions; we must turn them over and over in
thought, slowly penetrating their innermost meaning; and when we
possess their thought we must work it into our own thought. The
reading of a real book ought to be an event in one's history; it ought
to enlarge the vision, deepen the base of conviction, and add to the
reader whatever knowledge, insight, beauty, and power it contains. It
is possible to spend years of study on what may be called the
externals of the "Divine Comedy," and remain unaffected in nature by
this contact with one of the masterpieces of the spirit of man as well
as of the art of literature. It is also possible to so absorb Dante's
thought and so saturate one's self with the life of the poem as to add
to one's individual capital of thought and experience all that the
poet discerned in that deep heart of his and wrought out of that
intense and tragic experience. But this permanent and personal
possession can be acquired by those alone who brood over the poem and
recreate it within themselves by the play of the imagination upon it.
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