The extent of Dante's greatness is to be measured not only by his wide learning--for he was the greatest scholar of his time--but also by his noble seriousness, which enabled him to penetrate through that which was light and frivolous to that which was of deep import to humanity. His was not the task of amusing the idle populace with what he wrote--he had a high duty, which was to make men think on the realities of life and of their own short-comings. People whispered, as he passed along: "See his dark face and melancholy look! Hell has he seen and Purgatory, and Paradise as well! The mysteries of life are his, but he has paid the cost." And many went back to their pleasures, but some were impressed with his expression. Whence came his seriousness, whence came his penetrating glance and sober mien? Why did he move almost alone in all that heedless throng, intent upon the eternal truth? Because from early youth he had nourished in his heart a pure love which had chastened him and given him an understanding of those deeper things of the spirit, which was denied to most men of his time. Doubtless Dante would have been Dante, with or without the influence of Beatrice, but through her he received that broad humanity which makes him the symbol of the highest thought of his time. Whatever the story of Petrarch and his Laura may lack in dignity when compared with that of Dante and Beatrice, it certainly does not lack in grace or interest. While Dante early took an interest in the political affairs which distracted Florence, and was of a stern and somewhat forbidding character, mingling study with action, Petrarch, humanist and scholar as he was, represents also the more polite accomplishments of his time, as he was a most polished courtier and somewhat vain of his fair person. Dante's whole exterior was characteristic of his mind. If accounts be true, his eyes were large and black, his nose was aquiline, his complexion dark, and in all his movements he was slow and deliberate. Petrarch, on the contrary, was more quick and animated; he had bright blue eyes, a fair skin, and a merry laugh; and he himself it is who tells us how cautiously he used to turn the corner of a street lest the wind should disarrange the elaborate curls of his beautiful hair. Though record is made of this side of his character, it must not be assumed that his mind was a frivolous one, for he may be considered--as Professor Robinson says--as "the cosmopolitan representative of the first great forward movement" in Western civilization and deserves to rank--as Carducci claims--with Erasmus and Voltaire, each in his time the intellectual leader of Europe.