THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

184 The Harmony of Virtuepersonality much more relaxed, much less heroic, noble and severe.When we look closer we find that the Ramayanistic partmay possibly be separated into two parts, one of which has lessinspiration and is more deeply imbued with the letter of the Ramayana,but less with its spirit. The first portion again has a certainelement often in close contact with it which differs from it in aweaker inspiration, in being a body without the informing spiritof high poetry. It attempts to follow its manner and spirit butfails and reads therefore like imitation of a great poet. We haveto ask ourselves whether this is the work of an imitator or ofthe original poet in his uninspired moments. Are there besidesthe mass of inferior or obviously interpolated work which canbe easily swept aside, three distinct recognizable styles or fouror only two? In the ultimate decision of this question inconsistenciesof detail and treatment will be of great consequence. Butin the meantime I find nothing to prevent me from consideringthe work of the first poet, undoubtedly the greatest of the four,if four there are, as the original epic.It may indeed be objected that style is no safe test, for it isone which depends upon the personal preferences and ability ofthe critic. In an English literary periodical it was recently observedthat a certain Oxford professor who had studied Stevensonlike a classic attempted to apportion to Stevenson and LloydOsbourne their respective work in the Wrecker, but his apportionmentturned out to be hopelessly erroneous. To this the obviousanswer is that the Wrecker is a prose work and not poetry.There was no prose style ever written that a skilful hand couldnot reproduce as accurately as a practised forger reproduces asignature. But poetry, at any rate original poetry of the first class,is a different matter. The personality and style of a true poet areunmistakable to a competent mind, for though imitation, echo,adaptation or parody is certainly possible, it would be as easy toreproduce the personal note in the style as for the painter to putinto his portrait the living soul of its original. The successfuldiscrimination between original and copy depends then uponthe competence of the critic, his fineness of literary feeling,his sensitiveness to style. On such points the dictum of a foreigncritic is seldom of any value. One would not ask a mere