before its headstone. It was a very old one, with a death's-head and
cross-bones carved upon the top of it in very high relief. With his
pocket-knife he was removing the lumps of green moss out of the hollows of
the eyes of the carven skull. We did not interrupt him, but walked past
with a nod.

"You saw what he was doing, Wynnie? That reminds me of almost the only
thing in Dante's grand poem that troubles me. I cannot think of it without
a renewal of my concern, though I have no doubt he is as sorry now as I am
that ever he could have written it. When, in the _Inferno,_ he reaches the
lowest region of torture, which is a solid lake of ice, he finds the lost
plunged in it to various depths, some, if I remember rightly, entirely
submerged, and visible only through the ice, transparent as crystal, like
the insects found in amber. One man with his head only above the ice,
appeals to him as condemned to the same punishment to take pity on him, and
remove the lumps of frozen tears from his eyes, that he may weep a little
before they freeze again and stop the relief once more. Dante says to him,
'Tell me who you are, and if I do not assist you, I deserve to lie at the
bottom of the ice myself.' The man tells him who he is, and explains to him
one awful mystery of these regions. Then he says, 'Now stretch forth thy
hand, and open my eyes.' 'And,' says Dante, I did not open them for him;
and rudeness to him was courtesy.'"

"But he promised, you said."

"He did; and yet he did not do it. Pity and truth had abandoned him
together. One would think little of it comparatively, were it not that
Dante is so full of tenderness and grand religion. It is very awful, and
may teach us many things."