Page:Hutcheson Macaulay Posnett - Comparative Literature (1886).djvu/76

 us; but, though the sunshine be the same, nature has changed her looks since the days of Homer, of Athens, of Rome, not only because our vision of the world has been greatly widened and corrected by discovery, but even more on account of changed conditions in social life.

If such effects attended municipal life in ancient Greece and Italy, if men under such social conditions could not feel the life of nature till it was humanised—as it was even by Theocritus—we shall be prepared to find a very different aspect of nature in the literature of a social life widely removed from that of Athens or Rome. Sanskrit poetry, as readers of such a poem as the "Indian Song of Songs " need hardly be reminded, is full of adoring reverence for nature and her elements. Moreover, contrary to European ideas of dramatic propriety, the Indian drama delights in lengthy and vivid descriptions of nature. Thus in Mrichchhakatí, or "The Toy-Cart," we have a description of the Indian rainy season which we shall elsewhere quote; and the splendid forest-scene in Vikramórvasí completely subordinates man to nature. This strong sentiment of nature cannot be attributed to Indian scenery and climate alone. The Greek, too, was surrounded by splendid scenery; yet, as Schiller says, nature appealed to his understanding rather than his feelings, and while his few descriptions of nature are faithful and circumstantial, they exhibit only such warmth of sympathy as the embroidery of a garment or the workmanship of a shield might arouse. To understand the contrasts of Indian and Greek sympathy with nature, we must remember the Indian village community and the Greek city as well as the scenery by which they were each surrounded. Nor is the explanation to be found solely in the village and agricultural life of India contrasted with the city communities of Greece.