Page:Letters from Abroad.pdf/38

 29

to take short cuts to immediate success and dash through blunders with their lumbering “tanks” of political organisations, But there are needs that belong to all mankind and to all time. Those have to be satisfied through the rise and fall of empires, We all know that there is a vast difference between journalism and literature. Journalism is necessary and there are multitudes of men eager to carry it out. But if it suppresses the light of literature, then it will produce the London fog of November, which substitutes gaslight for the sunlight.

Santiniketan is there for giving expression to the prayer of the Eternal Man—asato ma sad gamaya —the prayer that will ring clearer as the ages roll on, even when the geographical names of all countries are changed and lose their meaning. If I give way to the passion of the moment and the claims of the crowd, then it will be like speculating with my Master’s money for a purpose which is not His own.

I know that my countrymen will clamour to borrow from this capital entrusted to me and exploit me for the needs which they believe to be more urgent than anything else. But, all the same, you must know that I have to be true to my trust. Santiniketan must treasure that shanti in all circumstances which is in the bosom of the Infinite. With begging and scrambling we find very little, but with being true to ourselves we find a great deal more than we desire. The best reward that I have