My Reminiscences

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My Reminiscences, by Rabindranath Tagore

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Title: My Reminiscences
Author: Rabindranath Tagore
Illustrator: Sasi Kumar Hesh
Release Date: August 2, 2007 [EBook #22217]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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+------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in | | this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of | | this document. | | | | Letters with macrons are represented as [=a]. | | | +------------------------------------------------------------+
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[Illustration: RABINDRANATH TAGORE FROM THE PORTRAIT IN COLOURS BY SASI KUMAR HESH]

MY REMINISCENCES
BY
SIR RABINDRANATH TAGORE
WITH FRONTISPIECE FROM THE PORTRAIT IN COLORS BY SASI KUMAR HESH
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1917
All rights reserved
COPYRIGHT, 1916 AND 1917
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1917.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
These Reminiscences were written and published by the Author in his fiftieth year, shortly before he started on a trip to Europe and America for his failing health in 1912. It was in the course of this trip that he wrote for the first time in the English language for publication.
In these memory pictures, so lightly, even casually presented by the author there is, nevertheless, revealed a connected history of his inner life together with that of the varying literary forms in which his growing self found successive expression, up to the point at which both his soul and poetry attained maturity.
This lightness of manner and importance of matter form a combination the translation of which into a different language is naturally a matter of considerable difficulty. It was, in any case, a task which the present Translator, not being an original writer in the English language, would hardly have ventured to undertake, had there not been other considerations. The translator's familiarity, however, with the persons, scenes, and events herein depicted made it a temptation difficult for him to resist, as well as a responsibility which he did not care to leave to others not possessing these advantages, and therefore more liable to miss a point, or give a wrong impression.
The Translator, moreover, had the author's permission and advice to make a free translation, a portion of which was completed and approved by the latter before he left India on his recent tour to Japan and America.
In regard to the nature of the freedom taken for the purposes of the translation, it may be mentioned that those suggestions which might not have been as clear to the foreign as to the Bengali reader have been brought out in a slightly more elaborate manner than in the original text; while again, in rare cases, others which depend on allusions entirely unfamiliar to the non-Indian reader, have been omitted rather than spoil by an over-elaboration the simplicity and naturalness which is the great feature of the original.
There are no footnotes in the original. All the footnotes here given have been added by the Translator in the hope that they may be of further assistance to the foreign reader.

CONTENTS
PAGE
Translator's Preface v

PART I
1. 1
2. Teaching Begins 3
3. Within and Without 8

PART II
4. Servocracy 25
5. The Normal School 30
6. Versification 35
7. Various Learning 38
8. My First Outing 44
9. Practising Poetry 48

PART III
10. Srikantha Babu 53
11. Our Bengali Course Ends 57
12. The Professor 60
13. My Father 67
14. A Journey with my Father 76
15. At the Himalayas 89

PART IV
16. My Return 101
17. Home Studies 111
18. My Home Environment 116
19. Literary Companions 125
20. Publishing 133
21. Bhanu Singha 135
22. Patriotism 138
23. The Bharati 147

PART V
24. Ahmedabad 155
25. England 157
26. Loken Palit 175
27. The Broken Heart 177

PART VI
28. European Music 189
29. Valmiki Pratibha 192
30. Evening Songs 199
31. An Essay on Music 203
32. The River-side 207
33. More About the Evening Songs 210
34. Morning Songs 214

PART VII
35. Rajendrahal Mitra 231
36. Karwar 235
37. Nature's Revenge 238
38. Pictures and Songs 241
39. An Intervening Period 244
40. Bankim Chandra 247

PART VIII
41. The Steamer Hulk 255
42. Bereavements 257
43. The Rains and Autumn 264
44. Sharps and Flats 267

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Rabindranath Tagore from the Portrait by S. K. Hesh Frontispiece
Facing Page
Tagore in 1877 6
The Inner Garden Was My Paradise 14
The Ganges 54
Satya 64
Singing to My Father 82
The Himalayas 94
The Servant-Maids in the Verandah 106
My Eldest Brother 120
Moonlight 180
The Ganges Again 208
Karwar Beach 236
My Brother Jyotirindra 256


PART I

MY REMINISCENCES
(1)
I know not who paints the pictures on memory's canvas; but whoever he may be, what he is painting are pictures; by which I mean that he is not there with his brush simply to make a faithful copy of all that