The great artist, kindled by his visions of imperishable loveliness
in the person of his departed Beatrice, now resolves to dedicate to
her honor his great life-labor,--even his immortal poem, which
should be a transcript of his thoughts, a mirror of his life, a
record of his sorrows, a painting of his experiences, a description
of what he saw, a digest of his great meditations, a thesaurus of
the treasures of the Mediaeval age, an exposition of its great and
leading ideas in philosophy and in religion. Every great man
wishes to leave behind some monument of his labors, to bless or
instruct mankind. Any man without some form of this noble ambition
lives in vain, even if his monument be no more than a cultivated
farm rescued from wildness and sterility.

Now Dante's monument is "the marvellous, mystic, unfathomable
song," in which he sang his sorrows and his joys, revealed his
visions, and recorded the passions and sentiments of his age. It
never can be popular, because it is so difficult to be understood,
and because its leading ideas are not in harmony with those which
are now received. I doubt if anybody can delight in that poem,
unless he sympathizes with the ideas of the Middle Ages; or, at
least, unless he is familiar with them, and with the historical
characters who lived in those turbulent and gloomy times. There is
more talk and pretension about that book than any one that I know
of. Like the "Faerie Queene" or the "Paradise Lost," it is a study
rather than a recreation; one of those productions which an
educated person ought to read in the course of his life, and which
if he can read in the original, and has read, is apt to boast of,--
like climbing a lofty mountain, enjoyable to some with youth and
vigor and enthusiasm and love of nature, but a very toilsome thing
to most people, especially if old and short-winded and gouty.