chivalric element in society at that period, when even boys were
required to choose objects of devotion, and to whom they were to be
loyal, and whose honor they were bound to defend. But the grave poet, in
the decline of his life, makes this simple confession, as the beginning
of that sentiment which never afterwards departed from him, and which
inspired him to his grandest efforts.

But this youthful attachment was unfortunate. Beatrice did not return
his passion, and had no conception of its force, and perhaps was not
even worthy to call it forth. She may have been beautiful; she may have
been gifted; she may have been commonplace. It matters little whether
she was intellectual or not, beautiful or not. It was not the flesh and
blood he saw, but the image of beauty and loveliness which his own mind
created. He idealized the girl; she was to him all that he fancied. But
she never encouraged him; she denied his greetings, and even avoided his
society. At last she died, when he was twenty-seven, and left him--to
use his own expression--"to ruminate on death, and envy whomsoever
dies." To console himself, he read Boëthius, and religious philosophy
was ever afterwards his favorite study. Nor did serenity come, so deep
were his sentiments, so powerful was his imagination, until he had
formed an exalted purpose to write a poem in her honor, and worthy of
his love. "If it please Him through whom all things come," said Dante,
"that my life be spared, I hope to tell such things of her as never
before have been seen by any one."

Now what inspired so strange a purpose? Was it a Platonic sentiment,
like the love of Petrarch for Laura, or something that we cannot
explain, and yet real,--a mystery of the soul in its deepest cravings
and aspirations? And is love, among mortals generally, based on such a
foundation? Is it flesh and blood we love; is it the intellect; is it