" And
so from the rooms of this shadowy house by the Seine side we see that
spirit going abroad, with its qualities already well defined, its
intimacy, its languid sweetness, its rebellion, its subtle skill in
dividing the elements of human passion, its care for physical beauty,
its worship of the body, which penetrated the early literature of Italy,
and finds an echo in Dante.
That Abelard is not mentioned in the Divine Comedy may appear a singular
omission to the reader of Dante, who seems to have inwoven into the
texture of his work whatever had impressed him as either effective in
colour or spiritually significant among the recorded incidents of actual
life. Nowhere in his great poem do we find the name, nor so much as an
allusion to the story of one who had left so deep a mark on the
philosophy of which Dante was an eager student, of whom in the Latin
Quarter, and from the lips of scholar or teacher in the University of
Paris, during his sojourn among them, he can hardly have failed to hear.
We can only suppose that he had indeed considered the story and the man,
and had abstained from passing judgment as to his place in the scheme
of "eternal justice.
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