Page:Love in Hindu Literature.djvu/75

 LOVE IN HINDU LITERATURE. 6i

It is intensity that constitutes a great part of mysticism. It is fervour that makes people mystical. Mysticism is the philosophy of a brain all aglow, of a soul in flames, of emotion at the boiling-point. The- same thing in social phenomena would be called revo- lutionism or anarchism, in art and literature would be called idealism or romanticism, in religion and spiritual experiences would be called transcendentalism or mys- ticism. So. many terms express but one idea, viz., the passion in ebullition.

Vidyapati is not a greater idealist then Burns. Burns is not less mystical than Vidyapati. Mysticism is not* the monopoly of the Hindu mediaevals. Idealism is not the monopoly of the European romanticists. There is a Burns-element in Hindu life, and there is a Vidyapati- element in Eur-American life. You will see that element only " under certain conditions of temperature and pressure."

"Little pot, soon hot" used to be said about Shelley. But we are not concerned at present with " too little" or " too soon," we are concerned with the heat. We want to know only the temperature. The remark gives us Shelley as human life at the boiling-point, and we accept this as true. The boiling-point varies with varying conditions — with the ranges of height above the sea-level. We need recognise these varying conditions while explaining the caloric of emotion in each instance. For from the dead level of Pope's cold swinish material- ism' to the height of Shelley's fine frenzy and Whitman's glowing enthusiasm we can have a graduated scale of literary thermometer. And this scale is not for the British-American art-world alone, it can be used as a