The work which most invites comparison with 'Kadambari' is one far
removed from it in place and time--Spenser's 'Faerie Queene.' Both
have in great measure the same faults and the same virtues. The
lack of proportion,--due partly to too large a plan, partly to an
imagination wandering at will--the absence of visualization--which
in Spenser produces sometimes a line like
'A lovely Ladie rode him faire beside
Upon a lowly Asse more white then snow,
Yet she much whiter,'
and in Bana many a description like that of Mahaçveta's fairness
(pp. 95-97)--the undiscriminating praise bestowed on those whom they
would fain honour, the shadowy nature of many of their personages,
and the intricacies in which the story loses itself, are faults common
to both. Both, too, by a strange coincidence, died with their work
unfinished. But if they have the same faults, they have also many
of the same virtues. The love of what is beautiful and pure both
in character and the world around, tenderness of heart, a gentle
spirit troubled by the disquiet of life, [30] grace and sweetness of
style, and idyllic simplicity, are common to both. Though, however,
Candrapida may have the chivalry and reverence of the Red Cross Knight,
and Una share with Kadambari or Rohini 'nobility, tenderness, loftiness
of soul, devotion and charm,' [31] the English hero and heroine are
more real and more strenuous. We are, indeed, told in one hurried
sentence of the heroic deeds of Candrapida in his world-conquest,
and his self-control and firmness are often insisted on; but as he
appears throughout the book, his self-control is constantly broken
down by affection or grief, and his firmness destroyed by a timid
balancing of conflicting duties, while his real virtue is his unfailing
gentleness and courtesy. Nor could Kadambari, like Una, bid him, in
any conflict, 'Add faith unto your force, and be not faint.' She is,
perhaps, in youth and entire self-surrender, more like Shakespeare's
Juliet, but she lacks her courage and resolve.