on pilgrimage, however, is seriously mooted, he makes a reply of wonderful beauty and profundity. Naughty as he is, he does not want to go, and is willing to support himself with reasons. Doubt leads to doubt and a frown culminates in a supreme defiance:—
"Why should I go to Benares?
My Mother's lotus-feet
Are millions and millions
Of holy places.
The books say, man dying in Benares
Attains Nirvana.
I believe it. Siva has said it.
But the root of all is devotion
And freedom is her slave.
What good is there even in Nirvana?
Mixing water with water——!
See I do not care to become sugar,
I want to eat sugar!"
What a flash is in those last two lines! The shrewd mother-wit of a peasant joins with the insight of a great poet, not only to express the finest of fine emotions—the joy of being the inferior, but to hint in the same words, at the secret of existence.
Quaint beyond quaintness is the
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