" The earthly
Beatrice is exalted to the heavenly in the later poem; but the same
perfect purity and intensity of feeling with which she is reverently
regarded in the "Divina Commedia" is visible in scarcely less degree in
the earlier work. The imagination which makes the unseen seen, and the
unreal real, belongs alike to the one and to the other. The "Vita
Nuova" is chiefly occupied with a series of visions; the "Divina
Commedia" is one long vision. The sympathy with the spirit and impulses
of the time, which in the first reveals the youthful impressibility of
the poet, in the last discloses itself in maturer forms, in more
personal expressions. In the "Vita Nuova" it is a sympathy mastering
the natural spirit; in the "Divina Commedia" the sympathy is controlled
by the force of established character. The change is that from him who
follows to him who commands. It is the privilege of men of genius, not
only to give more than others to the world, but also to receive more
from it. Sympathy, in its full comprehensiveness, is the proof of the
strongest individuality. By as much as Dante or Shakspeare learnt of
and entered into the hearts of men, by so much was his own nature
strengthened and made peculiarly his own.
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