"the loveliest and the most womanly woman of the
Middle Ages--at once absolutely real and truly ideal."

At her death, Dante is disconsolate for a time, and then devotes himself
to study with renewed vigor; and he closes his story of her with the
promise that he will write of her what has never yet been written of any
woman. This anticipates, perhaps, the _Divine Comedy_, which was yet to
be written, wherein Beatrice was his guide through Paradise and where he
accords her a place higher than that of the angels. It may mar the
somewhat idyllic simplicity of this story to add that Dante was married
some years later to Gemma Donati, the daughter of a distinguished
Florentine family, but such was the case. Little is known of her,
however, as Dante never speaks of her; and while there is no reason to
suppose that their union was not a happy one, it is safe to conclude
that it gave him no such spiritual uplift as he had felt from his
youthful passion.

The extent of Dante's greatness is to be measured not only by his wide
learning--for he was the greatest scholar of his time--but also by his
noble seriousness, which enabled him to penetrate through that which was
light and frivolous to that which was of deep import to humanity. His
was not the task of amusing the idle populace with what he wrote--he had
a high duty, which was to make men think on the realities of life and of
their own short-comings. People whispered, as he passed along: "See his
dark face and melancholy look! Hell has he seen and Purgatory, and
Paradise as well! The mysteries of life are his, but he has paid the
cost." And many went back to their pleasures, but some were impressed
with his expression. Whence came his seriousness, whence came his
penetrating glance and sober mien? Why did he move almost alone in all
that heedless throng, intent upon the eternal truth? Because from early
youth he had nourished in his heart a pure love which had chastened him
and given him an understanding of those deeper things of the spirit,
which was denied to most men of his time. Doubtless Dante would have
been Dante, with or without the influence of Beatrice, but through her
he received that broad humanity which makes him the symbol of the
highest thought of his time.

Whatever the story of Petrarch and his Laura may lack in dignity when
compared with that of Dante and Beatrice, it certainly does not lack in
grace or interest. While Dante early took an interest in the po