same heroic mould; all love-sick heroines suffer
in silence and burn with fever, all fools are shrewd and impudent
by turns, all knaves are heartless and cruel and suffer in the end.
There is not much to distinguish between one warrior and another,
between one tender woman and her sister. In the _Maha-bharata_ we
find just the reverse; each hero has a distinct individuality, a
character of his own, clearly discernible from that of other heroes.
No work of the imagination that could be named, always excepting
the Iliad, is so rich and so true as the _Maha-bharata_ in the
portraiture of the human character,--not in torment and suffering as
in Dante, not under overwhelming passions as in Shakespeare,--but
human character in its calm dignity of strength and repose, like
those immortal figures in marble which the ancients turned out, and
which modern sculptors have vainly sought to reproduce. The old Kuru
monarch Dhrita-rashtra, sightless and feeble, but majestic in his
ancient grandeur; the noble grandsire Bhishma, "death's subduer"
and unconquerable in war; the doughty Drona, venerable priest and
vengeful warrior; and the proud and peerless archer Karna--have each a
distinct character of his own which can not be mistaken for a moment.
The good and royal Yudhishthir, (I omit the final _a_ in some long
names which occur frequently), the "tiger-waisted" Bhima, and the
"helmet-wearing" Arjun are the Agamemnon, the Ajax, and the Achilles
of the Indian Epic. The proud and unyielding Duryodhan, and the
fierce and fiery Duhsasan stand out foremost among the wrathful sons
of the feeble old Kuru monarch. And Krishna possesses a character
higher than that of Ulysses; unmatched in human wisdom, ever striving
for righteousness and peace, he is thorough and unrelenting in
war when war has begun. And the women of the Indian Epic possess
characters as marked as those of the men. The stately and majestic
queen Gandhari, the loving and doting mother Pritha, the proud and
scornful Draupadi nursing her wrath till her wrongs are fearfully
revenged, and the bright and brilliant and sunny Subhadra,--these are
distinct images pencilled by the hand of a true master in the realm
of creative imagination.

And if the characters of the _Maha-bharata_ impress themselves on
the reader, the incidents of the Epic are no less striking. Every
scene on the shifting stage is a perfect and impressive picture. The
tournament of the princes in which Arjun and