discouragement; at any rate, he felt that he had been slothful and not eager enough to reach the top of the mountain.
On and on he travelled, sometimes with voices in the air singing to encourage him, sometimes with warnings coming from unknown quarters. The very trees laden with fruit on the roadside seemed to say, “Take enough of us, but do not eat too much; a glutton cannot see God.”
As they mounted higher and higher the landscape grew broader and broader, and more filled with a strange new sunshine. The huge bowlders and angry-looking rocks below, which had so frightened Dante as he began his journey, seemed now scarcely larger than pebbles and little stones. He smiled to think that he had ever cared for them at all. All weariness was gone, the last of the mysterious letters had vanished from his forehead, and the one longing of Dante’s heart was to meet again his beautiful and beloved Beatrice, and be led by her into the presence of the Great God of the Universe, who had so wonderfully and so mysteriously sent His angels to help him on the way.
At last they reached the spot called the Terrestrial Paradise, and there, as Virgil had told him, stood his loving Beatrice, who took him by the hand and led him up into Heaven itself, beyond the clouds, beyond the stars, beyond planets and worlds, even to the foot of the throne of God!
Of this I cannot tell you. No words of mine could make you see that glorious vision as Dante then beheld it. Your own little hearts must be freed from all wrong thoughts, from
all evil motives, from all selfish desires, must be filled with a love of others, and with generous willingness to do for others, and then may come to you, too, some day, this Great Vision that came to Dante.