Page:Anandamath, The Abbey of Bliss - Chatterjee.djvu/10

 to do, he forgets himself and almost exults in deeds which his better sense soon condemns. His mysterious physician tells us that an empire could not be founded by robbery, and no good could come out of sin. In the preface he says that Revolutions are persecutions and revolutionists are suicides. But still, till one comes to the close of it, one does not feel that the author is not in complete sympathy with the lawlessness perpetrated by his Children.

Another point in which he strongly resembles Scott is intense patriotism. There can be no gainsaying the fact that both were the very best citizens of their respective kingdoms and that both were inspired with a patriotism of the highest type. Yet the sort of patriotism that strikes their fancy most is not the patriotism which they themselves breathe. Scott was a good Britisher but in his writings he is intensely Scotch. Bankim Chandra too was a good Indian but in his writings he is most prominently a Bengali. The sort of patriotism that appeals to his fancy is the local feeling of the Rajputs for their country and of the Children for mother Bengal. Intellectually he may have been a citizen of India and member of the Indian nation but in his inmost heart was the sentiment of an intensely exclusive Bengali Hindu.

Another accessory of a romantic temperament is its fascination for the preternatural; and both Scott and Bankim Chandra had it to the fullest extent. To Scott however, it was a mere thing of love and an useful toy, to Bankim Chandra on the contrary it was a matter of deep seated conviction.

So far there is agreement between the two, but, in one important respect they differ. It has been said of Scott that he never had an idea that he was bound to leave the world better than he found it, yet this was the rooted conviction of Bamkim