THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

V.. 7. Kalidasa's Characters283attitude there is characteristic; she will not waste time over vainlamentation, since she cannot help. Fate has divided the lovers,Fate will unite them again; so with a cheerful and noble word ofconsolation she turns to the immediate work in hand.Chitraleqha, more fortunate than the other Apsaras, obtainingthrough three Acts a large canvas as the favourite and comradeof Urvasie, suffers dramatically from her good fortune, forshe must necessarily appear a little indistinct, so near to the superiorlight of her companion. Indeed, dramatic necessity demandssubdued tones in her portraiture lest she should deflectattention from Urvasie; richness of colour and prominence ofline therefore are not permissible. Yet in spite of these hamperingconditions the poet has made her a sufficiently definite personality.Indeed, her indulgent affection, her playful kindliness,her little outbreaks of loving impatience or sage advice, — theneglect of which she takes in excellent part, — her continualhalf-smiling surrender to Urvasie's petulance and wilfulness andher whole half matron-like air of elder-sisterly protection, giveher a very sensible charm and attractiveness; there is a true nymphlikeand divine grace, tact and felicity in all that she says anddoes. Outside the group of Apsaras the Hermitess Satyavatie isa slighter but equally attractive figure, venerable, kind, a littleimpersonal owing to the self-restraint which is her vocation, butwith glimpses through it of a fine motherliness and friendliness.The perpetual grace of humanness, which is so eminently Kalidasian,forming the atmosphere of all his plays, seems to deepenwith a peculiar beauty around his ascetics, Kanwa, Satyavatie,the learned and unfortunate lady of the Malavica. The “littlerogue of a tiring woman” Nipounica, sly and smooth-tongued,though with no real harm in her beyond a delight in her ownslyness and a fine sense of exhilaration in the midst of a familyrow, pleasantly brings up the slighter of these feminine personalities.The masculine sketches are drawn in even more unobtrusiveoutlines and, after Kalidasa's manner, less individualizedthan his women. The Charioteer and the Huntsmen are indeedhardly distinct figures; they have but a few lines to utter betweenthem and are only remarkable for the shadow of the purple whichcontinual association with Pururavas has cast over their manner of