"Is this the region, this the soil, the clime, Said then the lost Archangel, this the seat That we must change for heaven? this mournful gloom For that celestial light? Be it so, since he, Who now is Sovran, can dispose and bid What shall be right: farthest from him is best, Whom reason has equall'd, force hath made supreme Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields, Where joy forever dwells! Hail, horrors; hail, Infernal world! and thou, profoundest hell, Receive thy new possessor; one who brings A mind not to be changed by place or time. The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. What matter where, if I be still the same, And what I should be; all but less than he Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built Here for his envy; will not drive us hence: Here we may reign secure; and in my choice To reign is worth ambition, though in hell: Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven."[209] This sombre heroism, this harsh obstinacy, this biting irony, these proud stiff arms which clasp grief as a mistress, this concentration of invincible courage which, cast on its own resources, finds everything in itself, this power of passion and sway over passion, "The unconquerable will, And study of revenge, immortal hate, And courage never to submit or yield, And what is else not to be overcome,"[210] are features proper to the English character and to English literature, and you will find them later on in Byron's Lara and Conrad. Around the fallen angel, as within him, all is great. Dante's hell is but a hall of tortures, whose cells, one below another, descend to the deepest wells. Milton's hell is vast and vague. "A dungeon horrible on all sides round As one great furnace flamed, yet from those flames No light, but rather darkness visible Served only to discover sights of woe. Regions of sorrow, doleful shades...[211] "Beyond this flood a frozen continent Lies dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms Of whirlwind and dire hail, which on firm land Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems Of ancient pile."[212] The angels gather, innumerable legions: "As when heaven's fire Hath scathed the forest oaks or mountain pines, With singed top their stately growth, though bare, Stands on the blasted heath."[213] Milton needs the grand and infinite; he lavishes them. His eyes are only content in limitless space, and he produces colossal figures to fill it. Such is Satan wallowing on the surges of the livid sea: "In bulk as huge... as... that sea-beast Leviathan, which God of all his works Created hugest that swim the ocean stream: Him, haply, slumbering on the Norway foam, The pilot of some small night-founder'd skiff, Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell, With fixed anchor in his scaly rind Moors by his side under the lee, while night Invests the sea, and wished morn delays."[214]