f thought and study throughout the
universe--all substance and accident and mode--all so compounded that
they become one light. He thought he beheld at one and the same time
the oneness of this knot, and the universality of all which it implies;
because, when it came to his recollection, his heart dilated, and in the
course of one moment he felt ages of impatience to speak of it.

But thoughts as well as words failed him; and though ever afterwards he
could no more cease to yearn towards it, than he could take defect for
completion, or separate the idea of happiness from the wish to attain
it, still the utmost he could say of what he remembered would fall as
short of right speech as the sounds of an infant's tongue while it is
murmuring over the nipple; for the more he had looked at that light,
the more he found in it to amaze him, so that his brain toiled with
the succession of the astonishments. He saw, in the deep but clear
self-subsistence, three circles of three different colours of the same
breadth, one of them reflecting one of the others as rainbow does
rainbow, and the third consisting of a fire equally breathing from
both.[56]

O eternal Light! thou that dwellest in thyself alone, thou alone
understandest thyself, and art by thyself understood, and, so
understanding, thou laughest at thyself, and lovest.

The second, or reflected circle, as it went round, seemed to be painted
by its own colours with the likeness of a human face.[57]

But how this was done, or how the beholder was to express it, threw
his mind into the same state of bewilderment as the mathematician
experiences when he vainly pores over the circle to discover the
principle by which he is to square it.

He did, however, in a manner discern it. A flash of light was vouchsafed
him for the purpose; but the light left him no power to impart the
discernment; nor did he feel any longer impatient for the gift. Desire
became absorbed in submission, moving in as smooth unison as the
particles of a wheel, with the Love that is the mover of the sun and the
stars.[58]

[Footnote 1: A curious and happy image.

"Tornan de' nostri visi le postille
Debili si, che perla in bianca fronte
Non vien men tosto a le nostre pupille:
Tali vid' io piu facce a parlar pronte." ]

[Footnote 2: "Rodolfo da Tossignano, _Hist. Seraph. Relig._ P. i. p.
138, as cited by Lombardi, relates the following legend of Piccarda:
'Her brother Corso, inflamed with rag