All our affections, that alone inflamed
Are in the pleasure of the Holy Ghost,
Rejoice at being of his order formed;
And this allotment, which appears so low,
Therefore is given us, because our vows
Have been neglected and in some part void.'
Whence I to her: 'In your miraculous aspects
There shines I know not what of the divine,
Which doth transform you from our first conceptions.
Therefore I was not swift in my remembrance;
But what thou tellest me now aids me so,
That the refiguring is easier to me.'"
(III, 37.)
Dante, you recall, had found the souls in Purgatory contented with their
lot, though they were enduring great suffering; in Heaven he is eager to
learn in the very beginning whether the Elect are satisfied with the
decree which awards to them happiness in unequal measure. So he asks
Piccarda whether she and the other spirits in this lowest sphere are not
eager for a higher place. The answer is one of the most touching and
beautiful passages in the poem, summing up in language of radiant
gladness the law of Heaven that in "God's will is our peace," words
which Gladstone says "appear to have an unexpressible majesty of truth
about them, to be almost as if they were spoken from the very mouth of
God.
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