And this made me desirous of death, that I might go there where she
was."[N] Following upon the chapter in which this remarkable passage
occurs is one which is chiefly occupied with a digression upon the
immortality of the soul,--and with discourse upon this matter, says
Dante, "it will be beautiful to finish speaking of that living and
blessed Beatrice, of whom I intend to say no more in this book.... And
I believe and affirm and am certain that I shall pass after this to
another and better life, in which that glorious lady lives of whom my
soul was enamored."[O]
[Footnote N: _Convito_, Tratt. ii. c. 8.]
[Footnote O: Id. c. 9.]
But it is not from the "Convito" alone that this portion of the "Vita
Nuova" receives illustration. In that passage of the "Purgatory" in
which Beatrice is described as appearing in person to her lover the
first time since her death, she addresses him in words of stern rebuke
of his fickleness and his infidelity to her memory. The whole scene is,
perhaps, unsurpassed in imaginative reality; the vision appears to have
an actual existence, and the poet himself is subdued by the power of his
own imagination.
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