The hero belongs to the division described as the high-spirited, but temperate and firm ('Sahitya-Darpana,' § 64), i.e., he who is 'not given to boasting, placable, very profound, with great self-command, resolute, whose self-esteem is concealed, and faithful to his engagements,' and who has the 'eight manly qualities' of 'brilliancy, vivacity, sweetness of temper, depth of character, steadfastness, keen sense of honour, gallantry, and magnanimity' (Ibid., § 89). Kadambari is the type of the youthful heroine who feels love for the first time, is shy, and gentle even in indignation (Ibid., § 98). The companions of each are also those declared in the books of rhetoric to be appropriate.
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.