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 PREFACE

" shut her hands and laughingly asked every day, 'What have I got inside?' and nothing seemed impossible."

These words from Rabindranath Tagore's autobiography, referring to the eager mornings of his early boyhood, may serve as key to the following account, which attempts to relate him both to the old tradition in India and to the new day anticipated in his writings. Such as they are, the chapters that succeed must be left now to answer for themselves; but at the last moment I am tempted to add two or three passages. For since this book was written things have happened which have sadly changed our perspective; and they serve to recall a day, before their faintest shadow had fallen, when this visitor from India, lying ill in London, scanned the omens and read them very uneasily.

It was one of the rare occasions, during his vii