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18 look after the estates, my real life is as her bond slave all the time.

Consciously or unconsciously, I may have done many things that were untrue, but I have never uttered anything false in my poetry;—that is the sanctuary where the deepest truths of my life find refuge.

(78)

Black, swollen masses of cloud are coming up and sucking off the golden sunshine from the scene in front of me like great big pads of blotting paper. These are not thin, famished looking clouds, but resemble the sleek, well-nourished offspring of the wealthy. The rain must be coming on, for the breeze feels moist and tearful.

Over there, on the sky-piercing peaks of Simla, you will find it hard to realise, exactly, how important an event, here, is this coming of the clouds, or how many are anxiously looking up to the sky, hailing their advent.

I feel a great tenderness for these peasant folk—our ryots— big, helpless, Infantile children of Providence, who must have food brought to their very lips, or they are undone. When the breasts