Page:Shantiniketan; the Bolpur School of Rabindranath Tagore.djvu/22

2 ideals of civilisation in our country ever remained the ideals of those forest sanctuaries. All our great classic poets in their epic verses and dramas looked back with reverence upon that golden daybreak of the awakenment of India's soul.

In the modern time my turn has also come to dream of that age towering above all ages of subsequent history in the greatness of its simplicity and wisdom of pure life. While spending a great part of my youth in the riverside solitude of the sandbanks of the Padma, a time came when I woke up to the call of the spirit of my country and felt impelled to dedicate my life in furthering the purpose that lies in the heart of her history. I seemed choked for breath in the hideous nightmare of our present time, meaningless in its petty ambitions of poverty, and felt in me the struggle of my motherland for awakening in spiritual emancipation. Our endeavours after political agitation seemed to me unreal to the core and pitifully feeble in their utter helplessness. I felt that it is a blessing of providence that begging should be an unprofitable profession and that only to him who hath shall be given. I said to myself that we must seek for our own inheritance and with it buy our true place in the world.