ant man made perfect, having attained to his heavenly
country. It is more than merely this. The writer's mind is full of the
recollections and definite images of his various journeys. The permanent
scenery of the _inferno_ and _purgatorio_, very variously and distinctly
marked, is that of travel. The descent down the sides of the Pit, and
the ascent of the Sacred Mountain, show one familiar with such
scenes--one who had climbed painfully in perilous passes, and grown
dizzy on the brink of narrow ledges over sea or torrent. It is scenery
from the gorges of the Alps and Apennines, or the terraces and
precipices of the Riviera. Local reminiscences abound. The severed rocks
of the Adige Valley--the waterfall of St. Benedetto; the crags of
Pietra-pana and St. Leo, which overlook the plains of Lucca and Ravenna;
the "fair river" that flows among the poplars between Chiaveri and
Sestri; the marble quarries of Carrara; the "rough and desert ways
between Lerici and Turbia," and whose towery cliffs, going sheer into
the deep sea at Noli, which travellers on the Corniche road some thirty
years ago may yet remember with fear. Mountain experience furnished that
picture of the traveller caught in an Alpine mist and gradually climbing
above it; seeing the vapors grow thin, and the sun's orb appear faintly
through them; and issuing at last into sunshine on the mountain top,
while the light of sunset was lost already on the shores below:

"Ai raggi, morti gia' bassi lidi,"[40]

or that image of the cold dull shadow over the torrent, beneath
the Alpine fir:

"Un' ombra smorta
Qual sotto foglie verdi e rami nigri
Sovra suoi freddi rivi, l'Alpe porta;"[41]

or of the large snowflakes falling without wind among the mountains:

"d'un cader lento
Piovean di fuoco dilatate falde
Come di neve in Alpe senza vento."[42]

Of these years, then, of disappointment and exile the _Divina Commedia_
was the labor and fruit. A story in Boccaccio's life of Dante, told with
some detail, implies, indeed, that it was begun, and some progress made
in it, while Dante was yet in Florence--begun in Latin, and he quotes
three lines of it--continued afterward in Italian. This is not
impossible; indeed, the germ and presage of it may be traced in the
_Vita Nuova_. The idealized saint is there, in all the grace of her pure
and noble humbleness, the guide and safeguard of the poet's soul. She is
already in glory with Mary the Queen of A