JOHN ARANY 233 he is an old man the same features may be still dis cerned, although they are toned down by age. The old hero who, at the Court of Louis, chastises the pages, reminds us of the young Toldi who punished his brother's squires. A man who is easily roused and is moreover of a full-blooded habit, is very likely to suffer from over excitement, and to die of a fit of passion. The knight Toldi who seeks to forget his bitter grief in revelry, recalls the young lad whom we saw drinking in the inn on the eve of his first combat. How n atural it is that Toldi could not appreciate the ItaHan culture of the Court, and the dawning of the Renaissance. He, wh o had been brought up as a farmer, was not likely as a soldier to educate bimself and take to ultra-refined ltalian babits, especially as in his early years he had fought agaiost the ltalians, so that to his naive soldier's mind it seemed im possible to make friends with a former foe. The polished surroundings of the king tamed the lion from time to time, but the last stab goaded him to wildness again . However, like the lion, he can be noble as weil as formidable. He is one of those in whom proneness to anger is linked with great sensitiveness. How tender and faithfui he is to his king, to his mother, to the lady he loves, and to his old servant. In the soil of his nature everything grows to great proportions, like one of our plan ts in a tropical region. What is a small rose-bush with us becomes there a huge tree. Toldi is a perfect knight. His strong Christian feeling, his loyalty to his king, his respect for women, his kind oess towards the oppressed and the defenceless, in short, all that made up the duty of a knight in the Middle Ages, had not been learnt from masters of chivalry, but was native in bim. Wherever there is trouble, an instinct
