I suppose you have read in the newspapers that in Europe I met with an enthusiastic welcome. No doubt, I was thankful to the people for their kind feelings towards me; but somehow, deep in my heart, I was bewildered—almost pained.
Any expression of feeling by a great multitude of men must have in it a large measure of unreality. It cannot help exaggerating itself simply because of the cumulative effect of emotion upon the crowd-mind. It is like a sound in a hall, which is echoed back from innumerable corners. An immense amount of it is only contagion—it is irrational and every member of the crowd has the freedom to draw upon his own imagination for building up his opinion. Their idea of me cannot be the real me. I am sorry for it and for myself. It makes me feel a longing to take shelter in my former obscurity. It is hateful to have to live in a world made up of other people’s illusions. I have seen people press round me to touch the hem of my robe, to kiss it in reverence—it saddens my heart. How am I to convince these people that I am of them and not above them, and that there are many among them who are worthy of reverence from me?
And yet I know for certain, that there is not a single individual in their midst who is a poet as I am. But reverence of this kind is not for a poet. The poet is for conducting ceremonial in the festival of life; and for his reward he is to have his open invitation to all feasts wherever he is appreciated. If he is successful, he is appointed to the perpetual comradeship of man—not as a guide, but as a companion. But if, by some mad freak of fate, I am set upon an altar, I shall be deprived of my own true seat—which by right is mine and not another’s.
It is far better for a poet to miss his reward in this life—rather than to have a false reward, or to have his reward in an excessive measure. The man, who constantly receives honour from admiring crowds, has the grave danger of developing a habit of mental parasitism upon such honour. He consciously, or unconsciously, grows to have a kind of craving for it, and feels injured when his allowance is curtailed or withdrawn.
I become frightened of such a possibility in me, for it is vulgar. Unfortunately, when a person has some mission of doing some kind of public good, his popularity becomes the best asset for him. His own people most readily follow him, when other people have the same readiness—and this makes it a matter of temptation for such an individual. A large number of his followers will consider themselves as deceived by him, when the fickle flow of popularity changes its course.
My International University is sure to create such a risk for me. And yet the fulfilment of my life is never in any ambitious scheme such as this. Therefore a voice of warning is constantly troubling me in my heart. It cries: “Poet, fly away to your solitude.”
Curiously enough, it is an ambition which is not my own. It comes to me with a pressure from the outside. I am called upon to make ready a field in which other people will find their best opportunity—and by some chance I happen to be the only man who can help them. *