THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

FOURHis VersatilityWHENEVER a literary man givesproof of a high capacity in action people always talk about it asif a miracle had happened. The vulgar theory is that worldlyabilities are inconsistent with the poetic genius. Like most vulgartheories it is a conclusion made at a jump from a few superficialappearances. The inference to be drawn from a sympatheticstudy of the lives of great thinkers and great writers isthat except in certain rare cases versatility is one condition ofgenius. Indeed the literary ability may be said to contain all theothers, and the more so when it takes the form of criticism orof any art, such as the novelist's, which proceeds principally fromcriticism. Goethe in Germany, Shakespeare, Fielding and MatthewArnold in England are notable instances. Even where practicalabilities seem wanting, a close study will often reveal theirexistence rusting in a lumber-room of the man's mind. The poetand the thinker are helpless in the affairs of the world, becausethey choose to be helpless: they sacrifice the practical impulsein their nature, that they may give full expression to the imaginativeor speculative impulse; they choose to burn the candle atone end and not at the other, but for all that the candle hastwo ends and not one. Bankim, the greatest of novelists, hadthe versatility developed to its highest expression. Scholar, poet,essayist, novelist, philosopher, lawyer, critic, official, philologianand religious innovator, — the whole world seemed to beshut up in his single brain. At first sight he looks like a bundleof contradictions. He had a genius for language and a gift forlaw; he could write good official papers and he could write amatchless prose; he could pass examinations and he could rootout an organised tyranny; he could concern himself with thelargest problems of metaphysics and with the smallest details ofword-formation: he had a feeling for the sensuous facts of life