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No biographer of Dante, however, could possibly have compared with Dante himself, and it is much to be lamented that the entire disappearance of what must have been for his time an extensive body of correspondence has deprived us of all autobiographic record except theVita Nuova, which, almost devoid of incident, paints the inner man with lively force. Except Shelley’s Epipsychidion, the world has nothing to set beside this dithyrambic of purely Platonic passion. We must recur to it, and need only here fix the death of Beatrice, one of the great landmarks of Dante’s life, at June 9, 1290. Somewhat more than a year afterwards we find Dante moved, as a noble soul might well be, not by the attractions but by the spiritual sympathy of a compassionate lady. It is impossible to entertain the least doubt of the reality of an episode described by himself with such tenderness of self-excuse and poignancy of self-reproach, but to admit it is to admit the actuality of all the rest of theVita Nuova: