.. just as to him who comes from a long
journey, before he enters into the gate of his city, the citizens thereof
go forth to meet him, so the citizens of the eternal life go to meet
_her_, and do so because of her good deeds and contemplations, who,
having already betaken herself to God, seems to see those whom she
believes to be nigh unto God."[172] This also was to be the experience of
Dante, for who can doubt that the _Paradiso_ was something very unlike a
poetical exercise to him who appeals to the visions even of sleep as
proof of the soul's immortality?
When did his soul catch a glimpse of that certainty in which "the mind
that museth upon many things" can find assured rest? We have already said
that we believe Dante's political opinions to have taken their final
shape and the _De Monarchia_ to have been written before 1300.[173] That
the revision of the _Vita Nuova_ was completed in that year seems
probable from the last sonnet but one, which is addressed to pilgrims on
their way to the Santa Veronica at Rome.[174] In this sonnet he still
laments Beatrice as dead; he would make the pilgrims share his grief. It
is the very folly of despairing sorrow, that calls on the first comer,
stranger though he be, for a sympathy which none can fully give, and he
least of all.
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