Page:Letters of Tagore.djvu/6

4 a soul has any experience of big striving or of really and truly living.

They all eat and drink, do their office work, smoke and sleep, and chatter nonsensically. When they touch upon emotion they grow sentimental, when they reason they are childish. One yearns for a full-blooded, sturdy and capable personality; these are all so many shadows flitting about out of touch with the world.

(69)

He was a fully developed John Bull of the outrageous type,—with a huge beak of a nose, cunning eyes and a yard-long chin. The curtailment of our right to be tried by jury is now under consideration by the Government. The fellow dragged in the subject by the ears and insisted on arguing it out with our host, poor B—babu. He said the moral standard of the people in this country was low; that they had no real belief in the sacredness of life; so that they were unfit to serve on juries.

The utter contempt with which we are regarded by these people was brought home to me to see how they can accept a Bengali's hospitality and