Page:The Bengali Book of English Verse.djvu/16

Though the above instance does not directly touch the literary side of our life, yet I cite it to show that it was through her sensitiveness to ideas that Bengal has been deeply moved from the time of her first acquaintance with Europe. And ever since, the same formation of ideals has been going on through various stages of action and reaction. Those who have the talent and love for constructive work can show their productions in a palpable form and with a rapidity of results. But Idea works in the depth of life, bringing about fundamental changes in the very soil and seeds, and sprouts forth from the unseen in its own time in a living creative form. Its early energies are engaged and seem wasted in work of destruction, in explosions of discontent, in constant vacillation in choice, thus easily lending itself to the charge of volatility and indecision. But life has its side which is vigorously destructive and full of uncertainties and contradictions. The signs of perturbation so evident in Bengal, in her social and religious life, in her intellectual adjustments, only show that creative ideas are at work in the centre of her being. I trust I do not merely prove my patriotic bias by saying that, of all countries in the East, Bengal is most earnestly engaged in the exploration of life's ideal. All the great personalities she has produced in the modern time have presented to us according to their light, some ideal solution of life's inner problem. We are fully aware that this is not all that humanity requires, that there are other questions more immediately importunate which have to be answered if we must live; and there are signs that we are beginning actively to recognise this important fact. But all the same we must confess, that whatever it may have cost us, we have dealt more with the ideas that move our soul by kindling our imagination than with acquiring and arranging