Early Cultural Writings

CONTENTS

Pre-content

Post-content

Part One

The Harmony of Virtue

The Sole Motive of Man's Existence

The Harmony of Virtue

Beauty in the Real

Stray Thoughts

Part Two

On Literature

Bankim Chandra Chatterji

His Youth and College Life

The Bengal He Lived In

His Official Career

His Versatility

His Literary History

What He Did for Bengal

Our Hope in the Future

On Poetry and Literature

Poetry

Characteristics of Augustan Poetry

Sketch of the Progress of Poetry from Thomson to Wordsworth

Appendix: Test Questions

Marginalia on Madhusudan Dutt's Virangana Kavya

Originality in National Literatures

The Poetry of Kalidasa

A Proposed Work on Kalidasa

The Malavas

The Age of Kalidasa

The Historical Method

The Seasons

Hindu Drama

Vikramorvasie: The Play

Vikramorvasie: The Characters

The Spirit of the Times

On Translating Kalidasa

Appendix: Alternative and Unused Passages and Fragments

On the Mahabharata

Notes on the Mahabharata

Notes on the Mahabharata [Detailed]

Part Three

On Education

Address at the Baroda College Social Gathering

Education

The Brain of India

A System of National Education

The Human Mind

The Powers of the Mind

The Moral Nature

Simultaneous and Successive Teaching

The Training of the Senses

Sense— Improvement by Practice

The Training of the Mental Faculties

The Training of the Logical Faculty

Message for National Education Week (1918)

National Education

A Preface on National Education

Part Four

On Art

The National Value of Art

Two Pictures

Indian Art and an Old Classic

The Revival of Indian Art

An Answer to a Critic

Part Five

Conversations of the Dead

Dinshah, Perizade

Turiu, Uriu

Mazzini, Cavour, Garibaldi

Shivaji, Jaysingh

Littleton, Percival

Part Six

The Chandernagore Manuscript

Passing Thoughts [1]

Passing Thoughts [2]

Passing Thoughts [3]

Hathayoga

Rajayoga

Historical Impressions: The French Revolution

Historical Impressions: Napoleon

In the Society's Chambers

At the Society's Chambers

Things Seen in Symbols [1]

Things Seen in Symbols [2]

The Real Difficulty

Art

Part Seven

Epistles / Letters From Abroad

Epistles from Abroad

Letters from Abroad

Part Eight

Reviews

"Suprabhat"

"Hymns to the Goddess"

"South Indian Bronzes"

"God, the Invisible King"

"Rupam"

About Astrology

"Sanskrit Research"

"The Feast of Youth"

"Shama'a"

Part Nine

Bankim — Tilak — Dayananda

Rishi Bankim Chandra

Bal Gangadhar Tilak

A Great Mind, a Great Will

Dayananda: The Man and His Work

Dayananda and the Veda

The Men that Pass

Appendix One

Baroda Speeches and Reports

Speeches Written for the Maharaja of Baroda

Medical Department

The Revival of Industry in India

Report on Trade in the Baroda State

Opinions Written as Acting Principal

Appendix Two

Premises of Astrology

Premises of Astrology

Note on the Texts

III

 

Mazzini, Cavour, Garibaldi

 

MAZZINI

The state of Italy now is the proof that my teaching was needed. Machiavellianism rose again in the policy of Cavour and Italy, grasping too eagerly at the speedy fruit of her efforts, fell from the clearness of the revelation that I gave her. Therefore she suffers. We must work for the fruit, but there must not be such attachment to the fruit that to hasten it the true means is sacrificed; for that leads eventually to the sacrifice of the true end.

 

CAVOUR

The state of Italy is the proof of the soundness of my policy. Mazzini, you speak still as the ideologist, the man of notions. The statesman recognises ideals, but he has nothing to do with notions. He strikes always at his main objective and is willing to sacrifice much in details.

 

MAZZINI

What you say is true, but the sacrifice has been not of details, but of the essential.

 

CAVOUR

Italy is one, Italy is free.

 

GARIBALDI

The unity was my work. I did not use Machiavellianism or rely on statecraft and kingcraft. I did not buy liberty by mutilating my country. But I called to the soul of the nation and the soul of the nation awoke and shook itself free of the great tyrants and the petty. It was on the heroism and kingliness of the Italian soul, the resurrection in Florence and Rome and Naples of the ancient  

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Roman, Etruscan and Samnite that Cavour should have relied, not on the false-hearted huckster of states and principalities, Louis Napoleon.

 

MAZZINI

Italy is one, Italy is free, but in the body, not in the soul. Garibaldi, you gave united Italy to a man, not to the nation.

 

GARIBALDI

I gave it to the King and hero, Italy's representative. I do not yet think that I did ill. The nation said, "He stands for me", and as a democrat I bowed to the voice of the nation.

 

CAVOUR

It was the best-inspired action of your life. If there are problems unsolved, if there are parts of the body politic that are still ailing, that was to be expected. Only the dreamer demands a rapid convalescence from a disease so long and wasting. We did the work of the surgeon, that of the physician is being done quietly and without ostentation. There is a man in Italy, and he belongs to the house that was chosen.

 

MAZZINI

Italy has not fulfilled her mission; my heart is full of sorrow when I look upon her. She whom I would have educated to lead the world, is only an inferior Power leaning for support upon the selfish and unscrupulous Teuton. She who should have reorganised government and society into a fit mould for the ideas of an age of emancipation, is a laggard lingering in the steps of the Gaul and the Saxon. She who should have been the fountain of a new European culture, hardly figures among the leaders of humanity. The semi-Asiatic Muscovite is doing more for mankind than the heirs of the Roman.

 

CAVOUR

The statesman must have patience and work quietly towards his goal, securing each step as he goes. When the economic ills

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of Italy have been removed and the Church no longer opposes progress, the ideal of Mazzini may be fulfilled. The brain and sword of Italy may yet lead and rule Europe.

 

MAZZINI

It is not the diplomatist and the servant of the moment who can bring about that great consummation, but the heroic soul and the mighty brain that command Time and create opportunity. I sought to cast Italy into a Roman mould. I knew that a third revelation had to be made to Europe and that Italy was the chosen channel. So I was told when I went down from this world of the Ancients to be born again into humanity, "Twice has Italy given a new civilisation to Europe, the third time she shall give it." The voice that speaks when we are sent, does not lie.

 

CAVOUR

No, but the fruit does not always come at once. There is sometimes a long probation, a slow agony of purification, and the thing destined seems a dream that has come to nothing. We have to work knowing that the fruit will come, not impatient, not embittered and disappointed by its postponement. It is possible we shall be called again to bring about the consummation. We have helped Italy always; once more we shall help her.

 

MAZZINI

I know not, but the days grow long to me in the world of the Happy. When the call comes, I pray that it may be to conquer, not by diplomacy, but by truth and ardent courage,

 

GARIBALDI

Not by bargaining, but by the sword of the hero,

 

MAZZINI

Not by kingcraft, but by love for humanity and a noble wisdom.

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CAVOUR

I shall be content, so that Italy conquers.

 

GARIBALDI

When the sword that was struck out of her hand by the Abyssinian, is lifted again, I shall be there to lift it.  

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