duces a mirage of wrong appearance and startles our imagination into a feeling of awe and exaggerated expectation. To be tortured by tyranny is tolerable but to be deluded into the worship of a falsified ideal is humiliating for the whole age which by chance is submitted to it. If Italy has made even a temporary gain through a ruthless politics she may be excused from such an obsession—but for us outsiders who believe in idealism there can be no such excuse. And therefore it would be wise for us to wait before we bring our homage to a person, who has suddenly been forced upon our attention by a catastrophe, till through the process of time all the veils are removed that are woven round him by colourful sensations of the moment. My letter has run on to a great length. But I hope you will bear with it knowing that it has helped me in making my thoughts clear about my experience in Italy and also explaining the situation in which I have been placed. Rabindranath Tagore : \5 & &
