232 HUNGARIAN LITERATURE the nation but not to weaken it by too much plan ing and polishing . He dies r e minding the king of his sacred trust, the future of a people ; and soon the plain and stro ng iron coffin of the hero rests in the grave dug with his own bands. Toldi feels that he is out of place in a world filled with new thoughts and sentiments, and so the last, venerable oak of a vanished forest falls. Toldi's Eve is a 11 humoraus " epic in the best sense of the word . It possesses t he kind of humour which is akin to pathos and tears. Over the whole poem there broods something of the smiling melancholy of autumn, of slow universal decay, in the strength of the hero as in the season, and although we cannot help smiling at the old squire, and even at Toldi bimself sometimes, yet we honour and love them. An important feature of Arany' s work is his creation of typically Hungarian ch aracters. If the true Hungarian type were ever lost, it could be revived with the aid of Arany's poems. He toucbed the very depths of the Hungarian charac ter in creati ng Nicholas Toldi. Just as the sculptor of the Laocoon sclected a powerfully built figure in order to exhibit pain in ali its intensity, Arany chose a man of gigantic strength as a means of depicting the con vulsions of passio n. Every írnp ulse awoke a more powerful re spon se in Toldi than in other men . Toldi is emine ntly fiery and impulsive and his gre at physical strength adds to the force of those characte ristics. Yet withal he has the most delicate sense of honour and the kindest heart. When roused to fury, he grasps a millstone and hurls it at his tormentors. When livi ng for a time in a monastery, he threatens the prior and his fellow monks because they mock bim. His gaiety, like his wrath, is u nrestrai ned. Even when
