y to things spiritual and eternal.

While the little book exhibits many features of a literature in an early
stage of development, and many of the characteristics of a youthful
production, it is yet the first book of modern times which has such
quality as to possess perpetual contemporaneousness. It has become in
part archaic, but it does not become antiquated. It is the first book in
a modern tongue in which prose begins to have freedom of structure, and
ease of control over the resources of the language. It shows a steady
progress in Dante's mastery of literary art. The stiffness and lack of
rhythmical charm of the poems with which it begins disappear in the
later sonnets and canzoni, and before its close it exhibits the full
development of the sweet new style begun by Dante's predecessor Guido
Guinicelli, and of which the secret lay in obedience to the dictates of
nature within the heart.

The date of its compilation cannot be fixed with precision, but was
probably not far from 1295; and the words with which it closes seem to
indicate that the design of the 'Divine Comedy' had already taken a more
or less definite shape in Dante's mind.

The deepest interest of the 'New Life' is the evidence which it affords
in regard to Dante's character. The tenderness, sensitiveness, and
delicacy of feeling, the depth of passion, the purity of soul which are
manifest in it, leave no question as to the controlling qualities of his
disposition. These qualities rest upon a foundation of manliness, and
are buttressed by strong moral principles. At the very beginning of the
book is a sentence, which shows that he had already gained that
self-control which is the prime condition of strength and worth of
character. In speaking of the power which his imagination gave to Love
to rule over him, a power that had its source in the image of his lady,
he adds, "Yet was that image of such noble virtue that it never suffered
Love to rule me without the faithful counsel of the reason in those
matters in which to listen to its counsel was useful." His faculties
were already disciplined by study, and his gifts enriched with learning.
He was scholar hardly less than poet. The range of his acquisitions was
already wide, and it is plain that he had had the best instruction which
Florence could provide; and nowhere else could better have been found.

The death of Beatrice was the beginning of a new period of Dante's
self-development. So long as she l