Page:The Earliest Lives of Dante (Smith 1901).djvu/35

Family Cares, Honors, and Exile of Dante through lapse of time, let this recent instance make thee pursue thy pleasure with more temperate rein. Nothing in this world has less stability than popular favor. There is no hope more insane, no counsel more foolish than that which encourages one to trust therein. Let our minds, then, be lifted up to Heaven, in whose everlasting law, in whose eternal splendors, in whose true beauty, is clearly manifest the stability of Him who moves all things according to reason; and thus, leaving transitory things, we may, to avoid deception, fasten our every hope on Him, as on a fixed goal.