ived she had led him along toward the
right way. For a time, during the first ecstasy of grief at her loss,
she still sustained him. After a while, he tells us, his mind, which was
endeavoring to heal itself, sought for comfort in the mode which other
comfortless ones had accepted for their consolation. He read Boethius on
the 'Consolations of Philosophy,' and the words of comfort in Cicero's
'Treatise on Friendship.' By these he was led to further studies of
philosophy, and giving himself with ardor to its pursuit, he devoted
himself to the acquisition of the wisdom of this earth, to the neglect,
for a time, of the teachings of Divine revelation. He entered upon paths
of study which did not lead to the higher truth, and at the same time he
began to take active part himself in the affairs of the world. He was
attracted by the allurements of life. He married; he took office. He
shared in the pleasures of the day. He no longer listened to the voice
of the spirit, nor was faithful to the image of Beatrice in following on
earth the way which should lead him to her in heaven. But meanwhile he
wrote verses which under the form of poems of love were celebrations of
the beauty of Philosophy; and he was accomplishing himself in learning
till he became master of all the erudition of his time; he was
meditating deeply on politics, he was studying life even more than
books, he was becoming one of the deepest of thinkers and one of the
most accomplished of literary artists. But his life was of the world,
worldly, and it did not satisfy him. At last a change came. He suddenly
awoke to consciousness of how far he had strayed from that good of which
Beatrice was the type; how basely he had deserted the true ideals of his
youth; how perilous was the life of the world; how near he was to the
loss of the hope of salvation. We know not fully how this change was
wrought. All we know concerning it is to be gathered from passages in
his later works, in which, as in the 'Convito,' he explains the
allegorical significance of some of his poems, or as in the 'Divine
Comedy,' he gives poetic form to his experience as it had shaped itself
in his imagination. There are often difficulties in the interpretation
of his words, nor are all his statements reconcilable with each other in
detail. But I believe that in what I have set forth as the course of his
life between the death of Beatrice and his exile, I have stated nothing
which may not be confirmed b