"
No one can read this in its connection with what goes before and what
follows without feeling that a new conception of Beatrice had dawned upon
the mind of Dante, dim as yet, or purposely made to seem so, and yet the
authentic forerunner of the fulness of her rising as the light of his day
and the guide of his feet, the divine wisdom whose glory pales all meaner
stars. The conception of a poem in which Dante's creed in politics and
morals should be picturesquely and attractively embodied, and of the high
place which Beatrice should take in it, had begun vaguely to shape itself
in his thought. As he brooded over it, of a sudden it defined itself
clearly. "Soon after this sonnet there appeared to me a marvellous
vision[180] wherein I saw things which made me propose not to say more of
that blessed one until I could treat of her more worthily. And to arrive
at that I study all I can, as she verily knows. So that, if it be the
pleasure of Him through whom all things live, that my life hold out yet a
few years, I hope to say that of her which was never yet said of any
(woman). And then may it please Him who is the Lord of Courtesy that my
soul may go to see the glory of her Lady, that is, of that blessed
Beatrice who gloriously beholds the face of Him _qui est per omnia
saecula benedictus_.
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