Today, I Rabindranath Tagore complete eighty years of my life. I am struck by the change that has taken place both in my own attitude and in the psychology of my countrymen a change that carries within it a cause of profound tragedy. Our direct contact with the larger world of men was linked up with the contemporary history of the English people whom we came to know in those earlier days. It was mainly through their mighty literature that we formed our ideas with regard to these newcomers to our Bengal shores. Thus their scope being strictly limited, the educated of those days had recourse to English language and literature. Their days and nights were eloquent with the stately declamations of Burke, with Macaulay's long-rolling sentences; discussions centered upon Shakespeare's drama and Byron's poetry and above all upon the large hearted liberalism of the nineteenth century English politics. About this time, as a boy in England, I had the opportunity of listening to the speeches of John Bright. The large-hearted, radical liberalism of those speeches, overflowing all narrow national bounds, had made so deep an impression on my mind that something of it lingers even today, even in these days of graceless disillusionment. At the time through tentative attempts were being made to gain our national independence, at heart we had not lost faith in the generosity of the English race. This belief was so firmly rooted in the sentiments of our leaders as to lead them to hope that the victor would of his own grace pave the path of freedom for the vanquished.

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