The likeness of spirit between these two leads to the question, Had
Bana, like Spenser, any purpose, ethical or political, underlying his
story? On the surface it is pure romance, and it is hard to believe
that he had any motive but the simple delight of self-expression
and love for the children of his own imagination. He only claims
to tell a story 'tender with the charm of gracious speech, that
comes of itself, like a bride, to the possession of its lord';
[32] but it may be that he gladly gathered up in old age the fruits
of his life's experience, and that his own memory of his father's
tenderness to his childhood, of the temptations of youth, and of the
dangers of prosperity and flattery that assail the heart of kings,
was not used only to adorn a tale, but to be a guide to others on the
perilous path of life. Be that as it may, the interest of 'Kadambari,'
like that of the 'Faerie Queene,' does not depend for us now on any
underlying purpose, but on the picture it presents in itself of the
life and thought of a world removed in time, but not in sympathy, from
our own; on the fresh understanding it gives of those who are in the
widest sense our fellow-countrymen; and on the charm, to quote the
beautiful words of Professor Peterson, 'of a story of human sorrow
and divine consolation, of death and the passionate longing for a
union after death, that goes straight from the heart of one who had
himself felt the pang, and nursed the hope, to us who are of like
frame with him ... the story which from the beginning of time mortal
ears have yearned to hear, but which mortal lips have never spoken.'