Page:Kali the Mother.djvu/9

 The illustration can be carried further. In the word gloaming lies for us a wealth of associations,—the throbbing of the falling dusk, the tenderness of home-coming, the last sleepy laughter of children. The same emotional note is struck in Indian languages by the expression at the hour of cowdust.

How graphic is the difference! Yonder, beyond the grass, the cowgirl leads her cattle home to the village for the night. Their feet as they go strike the dust from the sunbaked path into a cloud behind them. The herd-girl herself looms large across the pasture—all things grow quickly dim, as if the air were filled with rising dust.

That word cowdust, indeed, strikes a whole vein of expression peculiar to this Eastern land. Everything about the cow has been observed and loved and named. As much water as will lie in the hole once made by its hoof is a well known measure amongst the Aryan folk!

It is unnecessary to argue further