THE LADIES’ WORLD.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2715, 21 January 1910, Page 3

THE LADIES’ WORLD.

DANTE’S BEATRICE. In “Public Opinion” for August there appears an article on Mr. Edgecombe Stanley’s book on “Famous Women of Florence.” Mr. Stanley lias restricted himself to the magic number, seven, and finds in each of these seven women a type of some special feature of the Renaissance. 01’ these Dante's Beatrice beads the list, and this is how she is presented to the reader:— Beatrice do’ Porlinari, the type of the New Woman,, in the* dawn of the Renaissance, the emblem of the purest and noblest human love and the pattern of what a young wife should be. Of this marvellous woman, who was born 643 years ago, to be the glory of European: literature, and the inspiration of the greatest- mind of the Middle; ages, we are given some vivid impressions in tlioi “Famous Women:” — “The Beatrice of Dante” —“such,” says Mr Stanley, “is the designation in Romance of Beatrice do’ Porlinari, the wife, of Simone do’ Bardi. Born in Florence in the glorious springtide of the Italian Renaissance, Beatrice de’ Porlinari is at the same time the most fascinating personality and the most bewitching potentially of that magnificent epoch. “She stands out on the rolls of history as the prototype of the New Woman —woman emancipated from the ignorance, prejudice and degradation of the Dark Ages; woman enfranchised by the civilisation, cidture, and courtesy of the New Life. Beatrice—truly—‘Blessed among women’—is also the sweet emblem of the science of things divine as well as the precious token of the economy of pure and free humanism.”

Here is Mr Stanley's picture of child life in Florence when Beatrice and her great immortaliser, Dante, played together under the Italian cun:— “As soon as the youngsters could toddle they found their way into the streets and squares of that city. Florentine mothers had a superstitious horror of clean hands and feet. The more the little ones grubbed in the dirt of the gutters the more likely were they to escape disease and death. “Well may we believe that among the sturdv youngsters who thronged the busy Via del Corso .and played together by the Carlo de’ Pazzi none were lustier than the children of Messeri Folco de’ Porlinari and Alighiero deli Alighieri, who lived side by side. AYliat matters if the social standing of the two families was dissimilar The newer garments and costlier toys of the Porlinari would be in no way put to shame the plainer garb and humbler playthings of the Alighieri. Often in hand Dante and Beatrice were playmates in romp and dance, sharing one another’s troubles and one another’s joys.” Then there was a certain famous May Day in 1274 when love came to Dante. Beatrice was some eight years, “full gentle and winning in her ways,” says Boccaccio; “her features were very delicate, most admirably disposed, and lull not only of great beauty, but also remarkable for purity and attractiveness.”

“From that time forth,” writes Dante in “La Vita Nuova,” after he saw !#jr in a dross of subdued and goodly crimson, “I say Love held abso_ lute empire- over my soul. He oftentimes commanded me to strive to gain a sight of my beauteous angel, consequently I frequently visited her during my boy. hood, and found in her so noble and bo praiseworthy a bearing that the line of Homer might with truth be applied to her: ‘She seems not a daughter of mortal man, but of the gods;’ ” Air Stanley tells how it was after Beatrice died on a June day in 1290 that her death crushed Dante Alighieri, but made him a ooet. Married to Simone de’ Bardi, her first child miscarried, and so she died.

Of Dante's grief Boccaccio wrote: —“What with weapiiig and anguish and total disregard of his external appearance, he became like some savage animal; his face was haggard, liis beard unshaven, and his whole appearance transformed from what it used to be, a spectacle of misery moving the compassion of all beholders, strangers as well as friends. ”

“After bitter appeals to heaven and the chi dings of the Almighty he mastered him.self and cried out mournfully: ‘The Lord God of Justice has called the most sweet lady to triumph under the banner of Mary, that blessed Queen of Heaven, whose name was ever uttered with deepest reverence by the lips of my sainted Beatrice.’

“Then ho took up his pen, dipper! in tears and ink —heavy in his hand it was; and he poured forth in halting lines his tender ‘To the Ninth of June :’

‘Upon this day harsh sorrow came to me, Saying: ‘To tarry I am here with thee.’ Alas! I wept. . Then, looking up, I saw sweet Love at hand, But his presence I could ’not understand ; So I asked him, ‘AYliat doest thou, trifler ?’ ‘Our Sweet Lady’s a-dying, bi'other dear.’ Alas! lie wept. . .

In Dante’s “Vita Nuova” “Beatrice is the ideal of all that women can be in this life. Five and twenty stanzas and strophes does the ecstatic lyricist strike of her in his poem of Human Love.”

RECIPES. TAPIOCA DELICIA. Take two tablespoonfuls of fine tapioca, the juice of two oranges, one cupful of water and sugar to taste. Boil it slowlv for fifteen or twenty minutes, then turn it into a mould to coo]. Serve the sweet with whipped cream. A Delicate Cornflour Pudding.—Mix half an ounce of cornflour with a little cold milk, then add a little more boiling hot. In all use a gill. Sweeten to taste, and when cold add the beaten white of two eggs. Boat all together, pour into small cups, and bake like a souffle. Stuffed Prunes.* —Select large a nd perfect prunes. Wash well in warm water. Steam one hour and then remove the stones. Stuff with fine chopped English walnuts and a little powdered sugar. Fill them full, shape nicely and roll in powdered sugar. They arc better if made a week before using. Fish cooked in paper is most delicate. Take some thin .white paper, rub it over with melted butter or oil, lay the fish in, and ' just fold the edges together. Bake in a moderate oven. Serve in the paper, and hand lemon with it. This is far loss trouble than frying, and much inoro delicate. Plum Sponge.—Pulp ■ sufficient ripe plums through a sieve to produce; a pint of puln, and mix this with rather over a pint of strong sugar arid water syrup, in which has been dissolved one ounce of leaf gelatine; when almost cold whisk into it the stiffly whipped whites of three or more eggs, and mould in an earthenware mould well rinsed in cold water.