The poet sometimes regards it as a proof of the supersensual nature of his passion that he is, willing to marry another woman. The hero of May Sinclair's novel, _The Divine Fire_, who is irresistibly impelled to propose to a girl, even while he trembles at the sacrilege of her touching a book belonging to his soul's mistress, is only a _reductio ad absurdum_ of a rather popular theory. All narratives of this sort can probably be traced back to Dante's autobiography, as given in the _Vita Nuova_. We have two poetic dramas dealing with Dante's love, by G. L. Raymond, [Footnote: _Dante_] and by Sara King Wiley. [Footnote: _Dante and Beatrice_] Both these writers, however, show a tendency to slur over Dante's affection for Gemma. Raymond represents their marriage as the result solely of Dante's compromising her by apparent attention, in order to avoid the appearance of insulting Beatrice with too close regard. Sara King Wiley, on the other hand, stresses the other aspect of Dante's feeling for Gemma, his gratitude for her pity at the time of Beatrice's death. Of course both dramatists are bound by historical considerations to make the outcome of their plays tragical, but practically all other expositions of the poet's double affections are likewise tragic. Cale Young Rice chooses another famous Renaissance lover for the hero of _A Night in Avignon_, a play with this theme. Here Petrarch, in a fit of impatience with his long loyalty to a hopeless love for Laura, turns to a light woman for consolation. According to the accepted mode, he refuses to tolerate Laura's name on the lips of his fancy. Laura, who has chosen this inconvenient moment to become convinced of the purity of Petrarch's devotion to her, comes to his home to offer her heart, but, discovering the other woman's presence there, she fails utterly to comprehend the subtle compliment to her involved, and leaves Petrarch in an agony of contrition. Marlowe, in Josephine Preston Peabody's drama, distributes his admiration more equally between his two loves. One stimulates the dramatist in him, by giving him an insatiable thirst for this world; the other elevates the poet, by lifting his thoughts to eternal beauty. When he is charged with being in love with the Canterbury maiden who is the object of his reverence, the "Little Quietude," as he calls her, he, comparing her to the Evening Star, contrasts her with the object of his burning passion, who seems to him the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He explains, I serve a lady so imperial fair, June paled when she was born. Indeed no star, No dream, no distance, but a very woman, Wise with the argent wisdom of the snake; Fair nurtured with that old forbidden fruit That thou hast heard of ... ... I would eat, and have all human joy, And know,--and know. He continues,