]
Thus, during a great part of the summer of 1289, Dante was in active
service as a soldier. He was no lovesick idler, no mere home-keeping
writer of verses, but was already taking his part in the affairs of the
state which he was afterwards to be called on for a time to assist in
governing, and he was laying up those stores of experience which were to
serve as the material out of which his vivifying imagination was to form
the great national poem of Italy. But of this active life, of these
personal engagements, of these terrible events which took such strong
possession of his soul, there is no word, no suggestion even, in the
book of his "New Life." In it there is no echo, however faint, of those
storms of public violence and private passion which broke dark over
Italy. In the midst of the tumults which sprang from the jealousies of
rival states, from the internal discords of cities, from the divisions
of parties, from the bitterness of domestic quarrels,--this little book
is full of tenderness and peace, and tells its story of love as if the
world were the abode of tranquillity.
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