When we were born, Ramakrishna Paramhansa had left us and Vivekananda was making his speeches at Chicago. Most of our father's generation were then much moved by Keshab Sen's oratory; we have also to remember that even before this period the Brahma Samaj had been founded and there was the impact on society of the house of the Tagores. Today those engaged in examining the new awakening of Bengal are looking into the roots of those influences.
The list of authors to whom I am indebted is large indeed. Tagore is the indispensable and the surest guide to himself. Where. as in his letters, there are contradictions, I would like to trace them as much to the inevitable uncertainties of personal crises as to his never-failing kindness to numerous enquiries, to that large obedience to patience and suffering which characterised his conduct. If goodness is not afraid of commitments. greatness also contains antitheses.
Next to him, I am indebted to Srijut Amal Home and Srijut Prabhatkumar Mukhopadhyaya. Home's Chronicle of eighty years in the Tagore Memorial Special Supplement Number of The Calcutta Municipal Gazette, September 13, 1941, is a brilliant combination of scholarship and journalism. Prabhat Babu's two volumes (in Bengali) on Tagore's life and works form the authoritative biography, while his shorter survey (in English) in the Tagore Birthday Number of the Visvabharati Quarterly, 1941. is the best brief account of Tagore's life written so far. I have leaned heavily on them all.
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