Page:Letters of Tagore.djvu/16

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Yesterday I was lying on the terrace roof till ten o'clock in the night. The moon was near its full; there was a delicious breeze; no one else was about. Stretched out there alone, I glanced back over my past life. This roof terrace, this moonlight, this south breeze,—in so many ways are they intertwined with my life. . . I am keeping cool my bottled memories "in the deep-delved earth" for my old age, and hope to enjoy them then, drop by drop, in the moonlight, on the roof terrace.

Imagination and reminiscence do not suffice a man in his youth,—his warm blood insists on action. But when with age he loses his power to act and ceases to be worried by an abundance of motive force, then memory alone is satisfying. Then the lake of his mind, placid like the still moonlight, receives so distinct a picture of old memories that it becomes difficult to make out the difference between past and present.