_Tuesday, February 1893_.
I do not want to wander about any more. I am pining for a corner in which
to nestle down snugly, away from the crowd.
India has two aspects--in one she is a householder, in the other a
wandering ascetic. The former refuses to budge from the home corner, the
latter has no home at all. I find both these within me. I want to roam
about and see all the wide world, yet I also yearn for a little sheltered
nook; like a bird with its tiny nest for a dwelling, and the vast sky for
flight.
I hanker after a corner because it serves to bring calmness to my mind. My
mind really wants to be busy, but in making the attempt it knocks so
repeatedly against the crowd as to become utterly frenzied and to keep
buffeting me, its cage, from within. If only it is allowed a little
leisurely solitude, and can look about and think to its heart's content,
it will express its feelings to its own satisfaction.
This freedom of solitude is what my mind is fretting for; it would be
alone with its imaginings, as the Creator broods over His own creation.