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But I know, when I reach India, the poet will be defeated; and I shall piously study the newspapers—every paragraph of them. But, for the present, even the poet is at a disadvantage—for the sea is rough, my head is swimming and the English language is extremely difficult to manage in a rolling ship.

Sometimes it amuses me to observe the struggle for supremacy that is going on between the different persons within me. In the present condition of India, when the call is sure to come to me to take some part, in some manner or other, in some political affairs, the Poet at once feels nervous, thinking that his claims are likely to be ignored, simply because he is the most useless member in the confederacy of my personality. He fully anticipates that argument against him, and takes special pains to glorify his deficiency even before any complaint has been submitted by anybody on this point. He has proudly begun to assert: “I belong to the great brotherhood of the supremely Useless. I am the cupbearer of the Gods, I share the common privilege with all divinities to be misunderstood. My purpose is to reveal Purposelessness to the children of the Immortal. I have nothing to do with committee meetings or laying of foundation stones for structures that stand against the passage of time and are sure ¢o be trampled to dust. I am to ply the ferry boat