'
Even the privation of some important bodily sense, such as sight
or hearing, has not been sufficient to deter courageous men from
zealously pursuing the struggle of life. Milton, when struck by
blindness, "still bore up and steered right onward." His greatest
works were produced during that period of his life in which be
suffered most--when he was poor, sick, old, blind, slandered,
and persecuted.
The lives of some of the greatest men have been a continuous
struggle with difficulty and apparent defeat. Dante produced his
greatest work in penury and exile. Banished from his native city
by the local faction to which he was opposed, his house was given
up to plunder, and he was sentenced in his absence to be burnt
alive. When informed by a friend that he might return to
Florence, if he would consent to ask for pardon and absolution, he
replied: "No! This is not the way that shall lead me back to my
country. I will return with hasty steps if you, or any other,
can open to me a way that shall not derogate from the fame or
the honour of Dante; but if by no such way Florence can be
entered, then to Florence I shall never return." His enemies
remaining implacable, Dante, after a banishment of twenty years,
died in exile. They even pursued him after death, when his
book, 'De Monarchia,' was publicly burnt at Bologna by order
of the Papal Legate.
Camoens also wrote his great poems mostly in banishment.
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