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A few days ago I said to a distinguished Bengali doctor of

medicine, "I know no German, yet if a translation of a German

poet had moved me, I would go to the British Museum and find

books in English that would tell me something of his life, and of

the history of his thought. But though these prose translations

from Rabindranath Tagore have stirred my blood as nothing has for

years, I shall not know anything of his life, and of the

movements of thought that have made them possible, if some Indian

traveller will not tell me." It seemed to him natural that I

should be moved, for he said, "I read Rabindranath every day, to

read one line of his is to forget all the troubles of the world."

I said, "An Englishman living in London in the reign of Richard

the Second had he been shown translations from Petrarch or from

Dante, would have found no books to answer his questions, but

would have questioned some Florentine banker or Lombard merchant

as I question you.