The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-10-19

And m.sic in his ears his beating heart did
The two following extracts form a most
admirable picture of the passive Hindoo
pantheistic faith as compared with the
active and personal and aggressive re-
ligion of the great West:
Hateful is the dark blue sky.
vaulted Ger the dark-biue sea-
Death is the end of life; an, why
Should life all labor be?
Let us alore. What pleasure can we have
To war with evil? Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing wave?
All things have rest and ripen toward the grave
In silence; ripen, fall and cease;
Give US long rest or death, dark death. or dream
full ease.
Ron'd to starboard. rolrd to larboard. when the
surge was scething free,
Where the ~wallowing monster spouted his foam
Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal
mind,
In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie re-
On the hills. like gods together. careless of man.
kind.
Surely, surely. slumber is more sweet than toll,
the shore
wave ard oar;
Oh, rest We. brother mariners. we will not wan
der more.
Artistically and historically the upper
1dUSeS valley Is one OF the mOSl Il
ing countries i'm the whole world. About
100 years ago the Mohammedans of upper
Asia broke into India just as they of
Africa, a century before, broke into Spain
and established a kingdom that for splen-
dor equaled that of the Moors. The Mo-
hammedans have a genius for architecture.
Their religion forbids music, painting and
statuary, but as Nature, when a sense Is
partially Cancelled, increases the acute
ness of the remainder, so, in Islam, the
accent of all the fine arts is concentrated in
architecture. The kingdom Of the great
Moguls eliminated with Akbar, although
for a century it had an effloresence like
the age of Pericles in Greece, of Augustus
in Rome or Elizabeth in England. The
upper Ganges valley is full of glorious
ruins, as well as equally glorious buildings
In perfect preservation. 1t is a blaze of
mosques, palaces, forts, tombs and min
arets. Nor are the Hindoo portions of
these countries to be forgotten. Holy
Benares upon the lovely Ganges is the re-
ligious headquarters of 300. 100000 people.
A more majestic sight is not to be found
in the whole world than at this river cres-
cent where for miles the eye rests upon
the most massive and grotesque of Hindoo
temples and CHATS. Every religion produces
an architecture of its own. A Hindoo tenn
pie is as much unlike a Mohammedan
mosque as a Russian church is unlike a
Christian cathedral. Mingled with all these
are the remains of gigantic ~observatories,
for these old Hindoos were persistent stu
dents of the starry heavens. The time
will come before many years when our art
students will throng this portion of the
gorgeous East as they now swarm to Paris
or Rome. The whole Ganges valley Is
bathed in a subtle atmosphere, the like Of
which is to be found nowhere in the world
and suggesting that of p~urple-hued Athens
In conclusion, take away Tennyson':
indian poems, of which the above arr
samples, and there would be a distinct
loss, quite as much as If we were to with
draw his Greek and Latin poems. The truth
is that Tennyson, like Edmund Burke, the
great orator. took in his grasp and covered
with his art half a dozen nations and quit
as many epochs of human history. A!
Burke's craftsmanship and oratcry in
cluded great continents, like India, Amer
lea and France, so Tennyson was and Il
1.-THE heir of all ages. in the foremost file
of time" DANIEL p. BALDWIN.
LOganSpOrt. Ind. Oct. IL.