THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

138The Harmony of Virtuebecause they are content to write about them after having seenthem with the mind only, and have not been able or have nottaken care first to be the things of which they would write andthen not so much write about them as let them pour out in speechthat is an image of the soul. They have been too easily attractedby the materials of poetry, artha and Ùabda; drawn by somepower and charm in the substance of speech, captivated by somemelody, harmony or colour in the form of speech, arrested bysome strong personal emotion which clutches at experience orgropes for expression in these externals of poetry, they have forgottento bathe in the Muses' deepest springs.Therefore among those ancient voices, even when the literatureof the ages has been winnowed and chosen by Time, thereare very few who recreate for us in poetic speech deeply andmightily the dead past, because they were that past, not so muchthemselves as the age and nation in which they lived and not somuch even the age and nation as that universal humanity whichin spite of all differences, under them and within them, evenexpressing its unity through them, is the same in every nationand in every age. Others give us only fragments of thought oroutbursts of feeling or reveal to us scattered incidents of sight,sound and outward happening. These are complete, vast, multitudinous,infinite in a way, impersonal, many-personed in theirvery personality, not divine workmen merely but fine creatorsendowed by God with something of His divine power and offeringtherefore in their works some image of His creative activity.(Incomplete)