senses; he conceived a vast brood of new ideas, he arrayed them in a
surprising manner in flesh and blood. He is ever clear and definite,
at least in the _Inferno_. He exhibits in every canto of that
wonderful poem a fresh image, but it is a clear one, of horror or
anguish, which leaves nothing to the imagination to add or conceive.
His ideal characters are real persons; they are present to our senses;
we feel their flesh, see the quivering of their limbs, hear their
lamentations, and feel a thrill of joy at their felicity. In the
_Paradiso_ he is more vague and general, and thence its acknowledged
inferiority to the _Inferno_. But the images of horror are much more
powerful than those of happiness; and it is they which have entranced
the world. "It is easier," says Madame de Stael, "to convey ideas of
suffering than those of happiness; for the former are too well known
to every heart, the latter only to a few."

The melancholy tone which pervades Dante's writings was doubtless, in
a great measure, owing to the misfortunes of his life; and to them we
are also indebted for many of the most caustic and powerful of his
verses--perhaps for the design of the _Inferno_ itself. He took
vengeance on the generation which had persecuted and exiled him, by
exhibiting its leaders suffering in the torments of hell. In his long
seclusion, chiefly in the monastery of Santa Croce di Fonte Avellana,
a wild and solitary retreat in the territory of Gubbio, and in a tower
belonging to the Conte Falcucci, in the same district, his immortal
work was written. The mortifications he underwent during this long and
dismal exile are thus described by himself:--"Wandering over almost
every part in which our language extends, I have gone about like a
mendicant; showing against my will the wound with which fortune has
smitten me, and which is often falsely imputed to the demerit of him
by whom it is endured. I have been, indeed, a vessel without sail or
steerage, carried about to divers ports, and roads, and shores, by the
dry wind that springs out of sad poverty."

In the third circle of hell, Dante sees those who are punished by the
plague of burning sand falling perpetually on them. Their torments are
thus described--

"Supin giaceva in terra alcuna gente;
Alcuna si sedea tutta raccolta;
Ed altra andava continuamente.
Quella che giva intorno era piu molta;
E quella men che giaceva al tormento;
Ma piu al duolo avea la lingua