Page:Letters from Abroad.pdf/66



mania for self-immolation. Our life to-day needs more colour, more expansion, more nourishment, for ail the variety of its famished functions. Whatever may be the case in other countries, we need in India more fullness of life, and not asceticism.

Deadness of life, in all forms, gives rise to impurities, by enfeebling our reason, narrowing our vision, creating fanaticism, owing to forcing our will power into abnormal! channels, Life carries its own purification, when its sap finds the passage unbarred through all ramifications.

I have just come back from Greenwich, a suburban part of New York, where last night I had a reception and a speech and a dinner and a discussion, till I felt empty like a burst balloon, with no gas left in it!

At the far distant end of the wilderness of such trials as this, what do I see ?—But what matters it? Results of our efforts delude us by appearing as final, They raise expectation of fulfilment and thus draw us on. But they are not final. They are roadside inns where we change our horses for a farther journey. An ideal is different. It carries its own progress within itself. Each stage is not a mere approach to the goal, but carries with it its own meaning and purpose.