This sustained magnanimity and lofty self-reliance, which never betrays itself, is one of the main elements in the grandeur of the _Commedia_. It is an imposing spectacle to see such fearlessness, such freedom, and such success in an untried path, amid unprepared materials and rude instruments, models scanty and only half understood, powers of language still doubtful and suspected, the deepest and strongest thought still confined to unbending forms and the harshest phrase; exact and extensive knowledge, as yet far out of reach; with no help from time, which familiarises all things, and of which, manner, elaboration, judgment, and taste are the gifts and inheritance;--to see the poet, trusting to his eye "which saw everything"[57] and his searching and creative spirit, venture undauntedly into all regions of thought and feeling, to draw thence a picture of the government of the universe. [Footnote 57: "Dante che tutto vedea."--_Sacchetti_, Nov. 114.] But such greatness had to endure its price and its counterpoise. Dante was alone:--except in his visionary world, solitary and companionless. The blind Greek had his throng of listeners; the blind Englishman his home and the voices of his daughters; Shakspere had his free associates of the stage; Goethe, his correspondents, a court, and all Germany to applaud. Not so Dante. The friends of his youth are already in the region of spirits, and meet him there--Casella, Forese;--Guido Cavalcanti will soon be with them. In this upper world he thinks and writes as a friendless man--to whom all that he had held dearest was either lost or embittered; he thinks and writes for himself.