year or so to his thirty-fifth perhaps, when he had a great
sorrow, he wrote the most beautiful love poetry in our language';
and then he said with deep emotion, 'words can never express what
I owed at seventeen to his love poetry. After that his art grew
deeper, it became religious and philosophical; all the
inspiration of mankind are in his hymns. He is the first among
our saints who has not refused to live, but has spoken out of
Life itself, and that is why we give him our love.' I may have
changed his well-chosen words in my memory but not his thought.
'A little while ago he was to read divine service in one of our
churches--we of the Brahma Samaj use your word 'church' in
English--it was the largest in Calcutta and not only was it
crowded, but the streets were all but impassable because of the
people.'

Other Indians came to see me and their reverence for this man
sounded strange in our world, where we hide great and little
things under the same veil of obvious comedy and half-serious
depreciation. When we were making the cathedrals had we a like
reverence for our great men? 'Every morning at three--I know,
for I have seen it'--one said to me, 'he sits immovable in
contemplation, and for two hours does not awake from his reverie
upon the nature of God. His father, the Maha Rishi, would
sometimes sit there all through the next day; once, upon a river,
he fell into contemplation because of the beauty of the
landscape, and the rowers waited for eight hours before they
could continue their journey.' He then told me of Mr. Tagore's
family and how for generations great men have come out of its
cradles. 'Today,' he said, 'there are Gogonendranath and
Abanindranath Tagore, who are artists; and Dwijendranath,