THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

II. 2. Bankim Chandra Chatterji79patron of letters, Rajah Jyotindra Mohun Tagore. At the sametime there arose, as in other parts of India, a new social spiritand a new political spirit, but these on a somewhat servilely Englishmodel. Of all its channels the released energies of the Bengalimind ran most violently into the channel of literature. And thiswas only natural; for although the Bengali has by centuries ofBrahmanic training acquired a religious temper, a taste for lawand a taste for learning, yet his peculiar sphere is language. Anothercircumstance must not be forgotten. Our Renascence wasmarked like its European prototype, though not to so startlingan extent, by a thawing of old moral custom. The calm, docile,pious, dutiful Hindu ideal was pushed aside with impatientenergy, and the Bengali, released from the iron restraint whichhad lain like a frost on his warm blood and sensuous feeling,escaped joyously into the open air of an almost Pagan freedom.The ancient Hindu cherished a profound sense of the nothingnessand vanity of life; the young Bengali felt vividly its joy,warmth and sensuousness. This is usually the moral note of aRenascence, a burning desire for Life, Life in her warm humanbeauty arrayed gloriously like a bride. It was the note ofthe sixteenth century, it is the note of the astonishing return toGreek Paganism, which is now beginning in England and France;and it was in a slighter and less intellectual way the note of thenew age in Bengal. Everything done by the men of that dayand their intellectual children is marked by an unbounded energyand passion. Their reading was enormous and ran oftenquite out of the usual track. Madhusudan Dutt, besides English,Bengali and Sanskrit, studied Greek, Latin, Italian and French,and wrote the last naturally and with ease. Toru Dutt, that unhappyand immature genius, who unfortunately wasted herselfon a foreign language and perished while yet little more thana girl, had, I have been told, a knowledge of Greek. At anyrate, she could write English with perfect grace and correctnessand French with energy and power. Her novels gainedthe ear of the French public and her songs breathed fire intothe hearts of Frenchmen in their fearful struggle with Germany.And as was their reading so was their life. They were giantsand did everything gigantically. They read hugely, wrote