The superstitious beliefs of the Italians could not help but see us as demons expelled from the heart of the inferno.
"If Dante in one capacity is the companion of Homer, Virgil, and Wordsworth, in the other he is the father of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. Moderns must not be shocked at this; the ‘high-brow’ and ‘low-brow’ branches of almost every art are usually specializations from an earlier and more fully human art which was neither or both."
- C. S. Lewis, "A Preface to Paradise Lost"
