_
I hate these polite formalities. Nowadays I keep repeating the line: "Much
rather would I be an Arab Bedouin!" A fine, healthy, strong, and free
barbarity.
I feel I want to quit this constant ageing of mind and body, with
incessant argument and nicety concerning ancient decaying things, and to
feel the joy of a free and vigorous life; to have,--be they good or
bad,--broad, unhesitating, unfettered ideas and aspirations, free from
everlasting friction between custom and sense, sense and desire, desire
and action.
If only I could set utterly and boundlessly free this hampered life of
mine, I would storm the four quarters and raise wave upon wave of tumult
all round; I would career away madly, like a wild horse, for very joy of
my own speed! But I am a Bengali, not a Bedouin! I go on sitting in my
corner, and mope and worry and argue. I turn my mind now this way up, now
the other--as a fish is fried--and the boiling oil blisters first this
side, then that.
Let it pass. Since I cannot be thoroughly wild, it is but proper that I
should make an endeavour to be thoroughly civil. Why foment a quarrel
between the two?
SHELIDAH,
_16th June 1892._
The more one lives alone on the river or in the open country, the clearer
it becomes that nothing is more beautiful or great than to perform the
ordinary duties of one's daily life simply and naturally. From the grasses
in the field to the stars in the sky, each one is doing just that; and
there is such profound peace and surpassing beauty in nature because none
of these tries forcibly to transgress its limitations.
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