dull things in the doing--while Mr. Tagore, like the Indian
civilization itself, has been content to discover the soul and
surrender himself to its spontaneity. He often seems to contrast
life with that of those who have loved more after our fashion,
and have more seeming weight in the world, and always humbly as
though he were only sure his way is best for him: 'Men going home
glance at me and smile and fill me with shame. I sit like a
beggar maid, drawing my skirt over my face, and when they ask me,
what it is I want, I drop my eyes and answer them not.' At
another time, remembering how his life had once a different
shape, he will say, 'Many an hour I have spent in the strife of
the good and the evil, but now it is the pleasure of my playmate
of the empty days to draw my heart on to him; and I know not why
this sudden call to what useless inconsequence.' An innocence, a
simplicity that one does not find elsewhere in literature makes
the birds and the leaves seem as near to him as they are near to
children, and the changes of the seasons great events as before
our thoughts had arisen between them and us. At times I wonder
if he has it from the literature of Bengal or from religion, and
at other times, remembering the birds alighting on his brother's
hands, I find pleasure in thinking it hereditary, a mystery that
was growing through the centuries like the courtesy of a Tristan
or a Pelanore. Indeed, when he is speaking of children, so much
a part of himself this quality seems, one is not certain that he
is not also speaking of the saints, 'They build their houses with
sand and they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they
weave their boats and smilingly float them on the vast deep.
Children have their play on the seashore of worlds. They know
not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets. Pearl fishers
dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships, while children