2_nd Kartik_ (_October_) 1891.
When I come to the country I cease to view man as separate from the rest.
As the river runs through many a clime, so does the stream of men babble
on, winding through woods and villages and towns. It is not a true
contrast that _men may come and men may go, but I go on for ever_.
Humanity, with all its confluent streams, big and small, flows on and on,
just as does the river, from its source in birth to its sea of death;--two
dark mysteries at either end, and between them various play and work and
chatter unceasing.
Over there the cultivators sing in the fields: here the fishing-boats
float by. The day wears on and the heat of the sun increases. Some bathers
are still in the river, others are finished and are taking home their
filled water-vessels. Thus, past both banks of the river, hundreds of
years have hummed their way, while the refrain rises in a mournful chorus:
_I go on for ever!_
Amid the noonday silence some youthful cowherd is heard calling at the top
of his voice for his companion; some boat splashes its way homewards; the
ripples lap against the empty jar which some village woman rests on the
water before dipping it; and with these mingle several other less definite
sounds,--the twittering of birds, the humming of bees, the plaintive
creaking of the house-boat as it gently swings to and fro,--the whole
making a tender lullaby, as of a mother trying to quiet a suffering child.
"Fret not," she sings, as she soothingly pats its fevered forehead. "Worry
not; weep no more. Let be your strugglings and grabbings and fightings;
forget a while, sleep a while."