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." "'But tell me, ye who in this place are happy, Are you desirous of a higher place, To see more or to make yourselves more friends?' First, with those other shades, she smiled a little; Thereafter answered me so full of gladness, She seemed to burn in the first fire of love: 'Brother, our will is quieted by virtue Of charity, that makes us wish alone For what we have, nor gives us thirst for more. If to be more exalted we aspired, Discordant would our aspirations be Unto the will of Him who here secludes us; Which thou-shalt see finds no place in these circles, If being in charity is needful here, And if thou lookest well into its nature; Nay 'tis essential to this blest existence To keep itself within the will divine, Whereby our very wishes are made one; So that, as we are station above station Throughout this realm, to all the realm 'tis pleasing, As to the King, who makes His will our will. And His will is our peace; this is the sea To which is moving onward whatsoever It doth create, and all that nature makes.' Then it was clear to me how everywhere In Heaven is Paradise, although the grace Of good supreme there rain not in one measure." (III, 64.) Piccarda then tells the moving story of her life, how as a girl she entered the order of St. Clare, only to be torn from the nunnery and given into marriage. "A perfect life and merit high in Heaven A lady o'er us," said she, "by whose rule Down in your world they vest and veil themselves, That until death they may both watch and sleep Beside that Spouse who every vow accepts Which charity conformeth to his pleasure. To follow her, in girlhood from the world I fled, and in her habit shut myself, And pledged me to the pathway of her sect. Then men accustomed unto evil more Than unto good, from the sweet cloister tore me; God knows what afterward my life became." (III, 97.)