INTRODUCTION xxv

“It is strange that I was reading yesterday with extreme care the two sonnets of Guido Guinicelli at p. 273 of the Cary’s Dante which I send you by this same post; I should like you to read these, and the 30th, 31st, and 33rd canto of the Purgatory, in my own book, but you must send it back to me when the one comes I have ordered for you.

“There is one thing I am sure both Rose and Beatrice would say-and Dante, now he is with them-that in this day of the dark world, no one who loves truly should think of being happy here; that we are called upon to labour and to wait¹-being sure of joy, such as we know not, and need not know, till it is revealed to us by the Spirit.

“I can’t write less gravely from this place, dear; but all your letter is delightful to me.”

One of the poems which Ruskin had been reading is this:-

“‘Comfort thee, comfort thee,’ exclaimeth Love;

And Pity by thy God adjures thee ‘rest’:

Oh then incline ye to such gentle prayer;

Nor Reason’s plea should ineffectual prove,

Who bids ye lay aside this dismal vest:

For man meets death through sadness and despair.

Amongst you ye have seen a face so fair:

Be this in mortal mourning some relief.

And, for more balm of grief,

Rescue thy spirit from its heavy load,

Remembering thy God;

And that in heaven thou hopest again to share

In sight of her, and with thine arms to fold:

Hope then; nor of this comfort quit thy hold.”

And, again, in the other:-

“I would from truth my lady’s praise supply,

Resembling her to lily and to rose....

A mightier virtue have I yet to tell;

No man may think of evil, seeing her.”

One may find further reason² here for what Ruskin says in the autobiographical preface to Sesame and Lilies: “In all that is strongest and deepest in me,-that fits me for my work, and gives light or shadow to my being, I have sympathy with Guido Guinicelli.”³

¹ Longfellow: A Psalm of Life (the last line).

² Compare Vol. XVIII. p. lx.

³ Ibid., p. 48.

[Version 0.04: March 2008]