Wherefore I said in my soul
with much gladness, Well, I would I had a pen and ink here and I would
write this down before I go any farther, for surely I will not forget
this forty years hence.'
From all this we learn that the way to the Celestial City lies within
high and close fencing walls. There is not room for many pilgrims to
walk abreast in that way; indeed, there is seldom room for two. There
are some parts of the way where two or even three pilgrims can for a time
walk and converse together, but for the most part the path is
distressingly lonely. The way is so fenced up also that a pilgrim cannot
so much as look either to the right hand or the left. Indeed, it is one
of the laws of that road that no man is to attempt to look except
straight on before him. But then there is this compensation for the
solitude and stringency of the way that the wall that so encloses it is
Salvation. And Salvation is such a wall that it is companionship and
prospect enough of itself. Dante saw a long reach of this same wall
running round the bottom of the mount that cleanses him who climbs it,--a
long stretch of such sculptured beauty, that it arrested him and
instructed him and delighted him beyond his power sufficiently to praise
it.
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