Dante's attentions to this second "screen" were, it would seem, misconstrued, and the fair fame of the innocent third party was endangered. "The thing was spoken of by many in terms which passed the bounds of courtesy," he tells us, and he himself was accused of vicious behaviour. This slander came to the ears of "that most gentle being, who was the destroyer of every vice and the very queen of virtue," and a terrible punishment followed. "As she passed me on a time," says the unhappy lover, "she denied me that most gracious salutation which was my all-in-all of bliss." Here he pauses to enlarge upon what that salutation was to him. It was all the recompense, so far as appears, that he ever had for his love, yet it was enough not only to delight but to purify his adoring mind. "Whenever and wherever she appeared, in the hope of that priceless salute, I had no longer an enemy in the world, such a flame of charity was kindled in me, making me forgive every one who had done me any wrong;" and with his usual intensity and minuteness of subtle detail, he proceeds to describe how he felt "when she was on the verge of giving me her greeting,"—the quickened current that coursed through his veins, the concentration of his sight upon her and her only. "Whoso had wished to know and see Love, had only to look upon the tremor of my eyes." And "when this most sweet lady did actually vouchsafe her salute," words have no power to describe the intolerable rapture, in which his physical being seemed to be cast off like a dead thing, and his soul lost itself in very excess of happiness. Sometimes the bliss was greater than he could bear. Let the young reader imagine, then, what the youth's sensations were when Beatrice passed
