Civilisation in the West is a magnifying glass. It makes the most ordinary things hugely big. Its buildings, business, amusements, are exaggerations. The spirit of the West loves its high-heeled boots, whose heels are much bigger than itself. Since I came to this continent, my arithmetic has become absurdly bloated. It refuses to be compressed within decent limits. My ideal money bag out here can easily put to shame D— and K— Babu tied together. But I can assure you that to carry such a burden in my imagination is wearisome.
Yesterday, some Santiniketan photographs came by chance into my hands. I felt as if I was suddenly wakened up from a Brobdingnagian nightmare. I say to myself, this is our Santiniketan. It is ours, because it has not been manufactured by a machine. It is truth itself—the truth which loves to be simple, because it is great. Truth is beautiful—like woman in our own country. She never strains to add to her inches by carrying extravagances under her feet. Happiness is not in success, not in bigness, but in truth.
What makes me feel so sad, in this country, is the fact that people here do not know that they are not happy. They are proud, like the sandy desert, which is proud of its glitter. This Sahara is mightily big; but my mind turns its back upon it, and sings:
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
In the modern age, with all its facilities of communication, the access to Innisfree has become most difficult. Central Africa opens its secret to the inquisitive man, and also the North and the South Pole—but the road to Innisfree lies in an eternal mystery.
Yet I belong to that “Isle of Innisfree”: its true name is Santiniketan. But when I leave it, and cross over to the western shore, I feel occasionally frightened lest I should lose my path back to it.
Oh! but how sweet is our Sal avenue, the breath of autumn in our Shiuli groves, the rainy evening resonant with music in Dinu’s absurd little room:
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.