THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

224 The Harmony of Virtueand suave in execution, a master of sound and language whohas moulded for himself out of the infinite possibilities of theSanskrit tongue a verse and diction which are absolutely the grandest,most puissant and most full-voiced of any human speech, a languageof the Gods. The note struck by Kalidasa when he builtSanskrit into that palace of noble sound, is the note which meetsus in almost all the best works of the classic literature. Its characteristicfeatures of style are a compact but never abrupt brevity,a soft gravity and smooth majesty, a noble harmony of verse,a strong and lucid beauty of chiselled prose, above all, an epicprecision of phrase, weighty, sparing and yet full of colour andsweetness. Moreover, it is admirably flexible, suiting itself to allforms from the epic to the lyric, but most triumphantly to thetwo greatest, the epic and the drama. In his epic style Kalidasaadds to these permanent features a more than Miltonic fullnessand grandiose pitch of sound and expression, in his dramatic anextraordinary grace and suavity which makes it adaptable to conversationand the expression of dramatic shade and subtly blendedemotion.With these supreme gifts Kalidasa had the advantage ofbeing born into an age with which he was in temperamentalsympathy and a civilisation which lent itself naturally to hispeculiar descriptive genius. It was an aristocratic civilisation,as indeed were those which had preceded it, but it far morenearly resembled the aristocratic civilisations of Europe by itsmaterial luxury, its aesthetic tastes, its polite culture, its keenworldly wisdom and its excessive appreciation of wit and learning.Religious and ethical thought and sentiment were cultivated muchas in France under Louis XIV, more in piety and professionthan as swaying the conduct; they pleased the intellect or elsetouched the sentiment, but did not govern the soul. It was badtaste to be irreligious, but it was not bad taste to be sensual oreven in some respects immoral. The splendid and luxuriouscourts of this period supported the orthodox religion and moralsout of convention, conservatism, the feeling for establishedorder and the inherited tastes and prejudices of centuries, notbecause they fostered any deep religious or ethical sentiment.Yet they applauded high moral ideas if presented to them in