THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

156 The Harmony of Virtueis always puissant and direct without any single pervasive atmosphereexcept in sunlit landscapes, but always effectual, realizingthe scene strongly or boldly by a few simple but sufficientwords. There are some poets who are the children of Nature,whose imagination is made of her dews, whose blood thrills toher with the perfect impulse of spiritual kinship; Wordsworth isof these and Valmiki. Their voices in speaking of her unconsciouslybecome rich and liquid and their words are touched witha subtle significance of thought or emotion. There are others whohold her with a strong sensuous grasp by virtue of a ripe, sometimesan over-ripe delight in beauty; such are Shakespeare, Keats,Kalidasa. Others again approach her with a fine or clear intellectualsense of charm as do some of the old classical poets. Hardlyin the rank of poets are those who like Dryden or Pope useher, if at all, only to provide them with a smoother well-turnedliterary expression. Vyasa belongs to none of these, and yet oftentouches the first three at particular points without definitelycoinciding with any. He takes the kingdom of Nature by violence.Approaching her from outside his masculine genius forcesits way to her secret, insists and will take no denial. Accordinglyhe is impressed at first contact by the harmony in the midst ofvariety of her external features, absorbs these into strong retentiveimagination, meditates on them and so reads his way to thecloser impression, the inner sense behind that which is external,the personal temperament of a landscape. In his record of whathe has seen, this impression more often than not comes first asthat which abides and prevails; sometimes it is all he cares torecord; but his tendency towards perfect faithfulness to the visionwithin leads him, when the scene is still fresh to his eye, torecord the data through which the impression was reached. Wehave all experienced the way in which our observation of a scene,conscious or unconscious, forms itself out of various separateand often uncoordinated impressions which, if we write a descriptionat the time or soon after and are faithful to ourselves,find their way into the picture, even at the expense of symmetry;but if we allow a long time to elapse before we recall thescene, there returns to us only a single self-consistent impressionwhich without accurately rendering it, retains its essence