Page:Between the twilights being studies of Indian women by one of themselves (IA betweentwilights00soraiala).pdf/22

2 among them made the white chalk marks of good luck—tridents, fishes, flames of fire; and the tidiest made the little inclosure—white cotton “railings,” the posts being balls of Ganges mud, in which were buried swiftly-flying arrows—threat for daring devil.

But the centre of interest was naturally the Altar. This was just a plain raised platform of wood, carrying bravely its variety of offering. Great mountains of yellow and white flowers, with fruits, chiefly the cocoanut, fruit of healing, old Sanskrit manuscripts, lettered palm-leaves, thumbed and blotted copybooks and tattered “primers”—the prayers of children—the pointed reed, and ink-horns, glass ink-pots and steel pens from the “Europe” shop across the way; a school edition of “The Vicar of Wakefield,” Ganot’s Physics, quaint combs and mirrors, powder-boxes, and perfumes, “the tears of scented grass,” or that more subtle “scent of red rose leaves.” Why not? Is she not woman, even though a Goddess and learned? The “Europe” products, I notice, carry milk in place of ink. “Sanctify to us this Western Education”—is that what it means in this country, where deepest feeling finds