LETTERS FROM ABROAD
people whom I should like to meet. Our stay in England has been wasted. Your Parliament debates about Dyerism in the Punjab and other symptoms of the arrogant spirit of contempt and callousness about India have deeply aggrieved me and it was with a feeling of relief that I left England.
NEAR Paris, August 20, 1920.
After a fortnight’s weary waiting I have got my Indian mails. Very likely Mrs. Pearson has gone to the country and the letters were waiting at her house, I feel relieved to know that your operation is over and you are none the worse for it.
We are in a delightful country, in a delightful place in France, meeting with people who are so human. I feel clearly that the ultimate reality for man’s life is his life in the world of ideas, where he is emancipated from the gravitational pull of the dust and where he realises that he is spirit. We, in India, live in a narrow cage of petty interests; we do not believe that we have wings, for we have lost our sky; we chatter and hop and peck at one another within the small range of our obstructed opportunities. It is difficult to achieve greatness of mind and character where our responsibility is diminutive and fragmentary, where our whole life occupies and affects an extremely limited area. And yet through the cracks and chinks of our walls we must send out our starved branches to the sunlight and air, and the roots of our
