From Inf. i. 10—Tant ’era pien di sonno—to Par. xxxiii. 58, we find this interest displayed; and before we pass on to consider his teaching on the more human aspect of Education, the personal relation between Teacher and Pupil, it may be worth while to direct attention to one or two passages which emphasise this point.
In the 30th Canto of Inferno[218] he uses as a simile that significant situation in which the dreamer hopes he is dreaming—
Qual è colui che suo dannaggio sogna,
Che sognando desidera sognare ...
In another passage[219] he sketches a case where the wakened dreamer forgets the “dream-cognition,” but is still dominated by the “affect”—
... Colui che somniando vede
Che dopo il sogno la passione impressa
Rimane, e l’ altro a la mente non riede....
Ere he quits the Terrace of Accidie, Dante falls asleep, and here he describes[220] in vivid and picturesque language the process of going to sleep, when thought follows thought in more or less inconsequent fashion—