timentality of Petrarch's sonnets. But connected as it is with
Dante's life,--the first of that series of works in which truth,
intensity, and tenderness of feeling are displayed as in the writings of
no other man,--its interest no longer arises merely from itself and from
its place in literature, but becomes indissolubly united with that which
belongs by every claim to the "Divina Commedia" and to the life of
Dante.

When the "Vita Nuova" was completed, Dante was somewhat less than
twenty-eight years old. Beatrice had died between two and three years
before, in 1290; and he seems to have pleased himself after her loss
by recalling to his memory the sweet incidents of her life, and of her
influence upon himself. He begins with the words:--

"In that part of the book of my memory before which little can be
read is found a rubric which says: _Incipit Vita Nova_ ['The New Life
begins']. Under which rubric I find the words written which it is my
intention to copy into this little book,--if not all of them, at least
their meaning."

This introduction, short as it is, exhibits a characteristic trait of
Dante's mind, in the declaration of his intention to copy from the
book of his memory, or, in other words, to write the true records of
experience. Truth was the chief quality of his intellect, and upon
this, as upon an unshaken foundation, rest the marvellous power and
consistency of his imaginations. His heart spoke clearly, and he
interpreted its speech plainly in his words. His tendency to mysticism
often, indeed, led him into strange fancies; but these, though sometimes
obscure, are never vague. After these few words of preface, the story
begins:--

"Nine times now, since my birth, the heaven of light had turned almost
to the same point in its gyration, when first appeared before my eyes
the glorious lady of my mind, who was called Beatrice, by many who did
not know why they thus called her.[A] She had now been in this life so
long, that in its time the starred heaven had moved toward the east one
of the twelve parts of a degree;[B] so that about the beginning of her
ninth year she appeared to me, and I near the end of my ninth year saw
her. She appeared to me clothed in a most noble color, a becoming and
modest crimson, and she was girt and adorned in the style that suited
her extreme youth. At that instant, I say truly, the spirit of life,
which dwells in the most secret chamber of the heart, began to tremble
with s