The instance of Beatrice is the strongest, although others might be adduced, to illustrate Dante's economy of actual experience; the skilful use, that is, of real emotions and incidents to serve for suggestion and material of poetical thought. As has been told, towards the close of the _Vita Nuova_ he describes how he found a temporary consolation for the loss of Beatrice in the pity of a fair and noble lady. In his next work, the _Convito_, or _Banquet_, she appears as the personification of philosophy. The plan of the _Convito_ is that of a commentary on odes which are interpreted as having various meanings--among others the literal as distinguished from the allegorical or essentially true. As far as this lady is concerned, Dante shows some eagerness to pass from the literal meaning; desirous, it may be, to correct the belief that he had ever wavered in his exclusive devotion to Beatrice. That for a time he did transfer his thoughts from Beatrice in Heaven to the fair lady of the window is almost certain, and by the time he wrote the _Purgatorio_ he was able to make confession of such a fault. But at the earlier period at which the _Convito_[49] was written, he may have come to regard the avowal in the _Vita Nuova_ as an oversight dishonouring to himself as well as to his first love, and so have slurred it over, leaving the fact to stand enveloped in an allegory. At any rate, to his gloss upon this passage in his life we are indebted for an interesting account of how, at the age of twenty-seven, he put himself to school:--