ART AND YOGA IN INDIA, 61

cipated from the last traces of tradition.' He does not
long to make himself a medium of expression of the spirit
of his race, but to impress his own more limited individuality
upon the work of his hand ; and he would shrink in horror
from the idea of leaving his work unsigned, of being but a
nameless unit in a group of workers inspired by one ideal.
Each modern artist seeks to invent for himself a new
artistic Esperanto, unmistakably his and his alone. The*
result of this artistic egoism is a corresponding barrenness -
for isolation is limitation. In how different a spirit the
great sculptors and painters and writers of old have-
worked ! Nearly all great things are impersonal.

Who wrote the Mahabharata ? "Vyasa, i the compiler/
"Who were the authors of the Yedas ? c Bishis ' * heard '
them, Who first ' saw' the great cat-gods of Egypt, the-
Chinese dragon, or the dance of Sivan ? Who carved the
images* at Ohartres ? Who shaped the Keltic otherworlds or
dreamed of that Himalayan forest of Broceliande that is
t]ie innermost sanctuary of the Land of Gods ? Not one of
these is known to us by name, nor are the records of their
lives detailed in interesting biographies.

To seek after originality, as Novalis truly perceived,,
is egoism. How much greater to stand aside from this
c gross egoism,' more than content if by intensity of
imagination we too can grasp and represent some shadow
of the great realities that artists in all ages have seen and
heard. And this intensity of imagination is true inspi-
ration (in breathing); it is the setting aside of the lower
self, and the inflow of a larger selft in touch with a more-
real reality. And this, once more, is yoga : to stand still
from self-willing and self-thinking ; from a part to become
the whole; from dreams to awaken to the truth behind,
them.