be impossible to exaggerate his vogue in his own land; and as for his songs—they are sung, words and music, through the length and breadth of India."
On one occasion in London, after the reading of the poet's play Chitra, Mr. Montague, the Under Secretary of State for India, described how, when riding through an Indian forest at night, he came upon a clearing where two or three men sat round a fire. Not being certain of his road, he was glad to dismount and rest his tired horse. Shortly after he had joined the group, a poor-looking, ill-clothed lad came out of the forest and sat down also at the fire. First one of the men sang a song and then another. The boy's turn came, and he sang a song more beautiful both in words and music than the rest. When asked who had made the song he said that he did not know; "they were singing these songs everywhere." A while after, Mr. Montague heard the words and music again, this time in a very different place, and when he asked for the name of the maker of the song he heard for the first time the name of Rabindranath Tagore.
Knowing the extraordinary fame that this story suggests—a fame implying the spirit of
