THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

176 The Harmony of Virtueinvaded us, especially its morbid animalism and its neurotic tendencyto abandon itself to its own desires.But this does not say all. Vyasa too, beyond the essentialuniversality of all great poets, has his peculiar appeal to humanityin general making his poem of world-wide as well as nationalimportance. By comparing him once again with Valmiki we shallrealize more precisely in what this appeal consists. The Titanicimpulse was strong in Valmiki. The very dimensions of his poeticalcanvas, the audacity and occasional recklessness of his conceptions,the gust with which he fills in the gigantic outlines ofhis Ravana are the essence of Titanism; his genius was so universaland Protean that no single element of it can be said topredominate, yet this tendency towards the enormous entersperhaps as largely into it as any other. But to the temperamentof Vyasa the Titanic was alien. It is true he carves his figures solargely (for he was a sculptor in creation rather than a painterlike Valmiki) that looked at separately they seem to have colossalstature, but he is always at pains so to harmonise them thatthey shall appear measurable to us and strongly human. Theyare largely and boldly human, oppressive and sublime, but neverTitanic. He loves the earth and the heavens but he visits notPatala nor the stupendous regions of Vrishaparvan. His Rakshasas,supposing them to be his at all, are epic giants or matter-offactogres, but they do not exhale the breath of midnight andterror like Valmiki's demons nor the spirit of world-shaking anarchylike Valmiki's giants. This poet could never have conceivedRavana. He had neither unconscious sympathy nor a sufficientforce of abhorrence to inspire him. The passions of Duryodhanathough presented with great force of antipathetic insight arehuman and limited. The Titanic was so foreign to Vyasa's habitof mind that he could not grasp it sufficiently either to love orhate. His humanism shuts to him the outermost gates of thatsublime and menacing region; he has not the secret of the stormnor has his soul ridden upon the whirlwind. For his particularwork this was a real advantage. Valmiki has drawn for us boththe divine and anarchic in extraordinary proportions; an Akbaror a Napoleon might find his spiritual kindred in Rama or Ravana,but with more ordinary beings such figures impress the