6/147 It was the pathos of his situation that he persisted in idealizing this paradise, and expected to find in it a paradise of exceptional natures. No one turns Circe's pigsty into a Parnassus. If Tasso had possessed force of character enough to rend the trammels of convention and to live his own life in a self-constructed sphere, he might still have been unfortunate. Nature condemned him to suffering. |