quiet seclusion of school and college.
He was thrown neck and heels into the midst of the fiery Italian
politics of an age when one could poniard his enemy on the streets and
go unpunished, providing he had power or influence. And it is probable
that he saw many wild doings. He was, however, of studious habits and
loved reading more than the air he breathed. And while little is known
of his boyhood years, it is certain that he mastered then and in his
early manhood many of the best books that had been written since the
beginning of the world. Moreover, as Dante later said, he had taught
himself "the art of bringing words into verse"--an art that he mastered
so thoroughly that his name was to live forever.

When Dante was still a young boy there befell something that proved to
be the most wonderful happening in his entire life. This was nothing
else than meeting a little girl named Beatrice Portinari. Although
Beatrice was only a child, and Dante himself hardly ten years old, he
felt a love for her that lasted from that minute until the day of his
death and that inspired him to write the great poem that made his name
famous throughout the world.

A festival was given by the family of the Portinari which was a noble
one and possessed such wealth that its members afterward became bankers
for King Edward the Third of England. Among the guests was the boy,
Dante, and he beheld Beatrice there as a beautiful little girl. How
strangely he was affected by the sight of her he told in later years,
and his words have been translated and quoted as follows: "Her dress,
on that day," said Dante, "was of a most noble color,--a subdued and
goodly crimson, girdled and adorned in such sort as best suited her
very tender age. At that moment, I say most truly, that the spirit of
life, which hath its dwelling in the secretest chamber of the heart,
began to tremble so violently that the least pulses of my body shook
therewith. From that time Love ruled my soul."

Dante did not speak to Beatrice on that occasion,--in fact, he saw her,
or addressed her, only two or three times in his entire life. But from
the day when she first appeared to him in her crimson dress, he sought
to perform some deed that would make him worthy of her love, and the
result was the great poem in which he placed her name beside his own.

In spite of his love, Dante did not become an idle dreamer, but
developed into an active and studious young man, ready to take up