once. No deed can bridge over the lapse of time which divides the first
stage of a great social structure from its completion. Each life may
give its touch; it can give no more; through the endless generations.
The vision of a regenerate humanity, "his last and loveliest," must
depart like the rest. Then suddenly a voice,

"... Sordello, wake!
God has conceded two sights to a man--
One, of men's whole work, time's completed plan,
The other, of the minute's work, man's first
Step to the plan's completeness: what's dispersed
Save hope of that supreme step which, descried
Earliest, was meant still to remain untried
Only to give you heart to take your own
Step, and there stay--leaving the rest alone?" (vol. i. p. 217.)

The facts restate themselves, but from an opposite point of view. No man
can give more than his single touch. The whole could not dispense with
one of them. The work is infinite, but it is continuous. The later poet
weaves into his own song the echoes of the first. "The last of each
series of workmen sums up in himself all predecessors," whether he be
the type of strength like Charlemagne, or of knowledge like Hildebrand.
Strength comes first in the scheme of life; it is the joyousness of
childhood. Step by step Strength works Knowledge with its groans and
tears. And then, in its turn, Knowledge works Strength, Knowledge
controls Strength, Knowledge supersedes Strength. It is Knowledge which
must prevail now. May it not be he who at this moment resumes its whole
inheritance--its accumulated opportunities, in himself? He could stand
still and dream while he fancied he stood alone; but he knows now that
he is part of humanity, and it of him. Goito is left behind; Ferrara is