taste, without doing justice to the massive quality without which his
poetry could not have survived.

Though Kalidasa has not been as widely appreciated in Europe as he
deserves, he is the only Sanskrit poet who can properly be said to
have been appreciated at all. Here he must struggle with the truly
Himalayan barrier of language. Since there will never be many
Europeans, even among the cultivated, who will find it possible to
study the intricate Sanskrit language, there remains only one means of
presentation. None knows the cruel inadequacy of poetical translation
like the translator. He understands better than others can, the
significance of the position which Kalidasa has won in Europe. When
Sir William Jones first translated the _Shakuntala_ in 1789, his work
was enthusiastically received in Europe, and most warmly, as was
fitting, by the greatest living poet of Europe. Since that day, as
is testified by new translations and by reprints of the old, there
have been many thousands who have read at least one of Kalidasa's
works; other thousands have seen it on the stage in Europe and
America.

How explain a reputation that maintains itself indefinitely and that
conquers a new continent after a lapse of thirteen hundred years? None
can explain it, yet certain contributory causes can be named.

No other poet in any land has sung of happy love between man and woman
as Kalidasa sang. Every one of his works is a love-poem, however much
more it may be. Yet the theme is so infinitely varied that the reader
never wearies. If one were to doubt from a study of European
literature, comparing the ancient classics with modern works, whether
romantic love be the expression of a natural instinct, be not rather a