Hoping that the descriptions of village scenes in Bengal
contained in these letters would also be of interest to English readers,
the translation of a selection of that selection has been entrusted to one
who, among all those whom I know, was best fitted to carry it out.
RABINDRANATH TAGORE.
_20th June 1920._
BANDORA, BY THE SEA,
_October_ 1885.
The unsheltered sea heaves and heaves and blanches into foam. It sets me
thinking of some tied-up monster straining at its bonds, in front of whose
gaping jaws we build our homes on the shore and watch it lashing its tail.
What immense strength, with waves swelling like the muscles of a giant!
From the beginning of creation there has been this feud between land and
water: the dry earth slowly and silently adding to its domain and
spreading a broader and broader lap for its children; the ocean receding
step by step, heaving and sobbing and beating its breast in despair.
Remember the sea was once sole monarch, utterly free.
Land rose from its womb, usurped its throne, and ever since the maddened
old creature, with hoary crest of foam, wails and laments continually,
like King Lear exposed to the fury of the elements.
_July 1887._
I am in my twenty-seventh year. This event keeps thrusting itself before
my mind--nothing else seems to have happened of late.
But to reach twenty-seven--is that a trifling thing?--to pass the meridian
of the twenties on one's progress towards thirty?--thirty--that is to say
maturity--the age at which people expect fruit rather than fresh foliage.
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