Yet what each one does is by no means of little moment. The grass has to put forth all its energy to draw sustenance from the uttermost tips of its rootlets simply to grow where it is as grass; it does not vainly strive to become a banyan tree; and so the earth gains a lovely carpet of green. And, indeed, what little of beauty and peace is to be found in the societies of men is owing to the daily performance of small duties, not to big doings and fine talk. Perhaps because the whole of our life is not vividly present at each moment, some imaginary hope may lure, some glowing picture of a future, untrammelled with everyday burdens, may tempt us; but these are illusory. SHELIDAH, _2nd Asarh (June) 1892._ Yesterday, the first day of _Asarh_,[1] the enthronement of the rainy season was celebrated with due pomp and circumstance. It was very hot the whole day, but in the afternoon dense clouds rolled up in stupendous masses. [Footnote 1: June-July, the commencement of the rainy season.] I thought to myself, this first day of the rains, I would rather risk getting wet than remain confined in my dungeon of a cabin. The year 1293 [1] will not come again in my life, and, for the matter of that, how many more even of these first days of _Asarh_ will come? My life would be sufficiently long could it number thirty of these first days of _Asarh_ to which the poet of the _Meghaduta_[2] has, for me at least, given special distinction. [Footnote 1: Of the Bengal era.] [Footnote 2: In the _Meghaduta_ (Cloud Messenger) of Kalidas a famous description of the burst of the Monsoon begins with the words: _On the first day of Asarh_.] It sometimes strikes me how immensely fortunate I am that each day should take its place in my life, either reddened with the rising and setting sun, or refreshingly cool with deep, dark clouds, or blooming like a white flower in the moonlight. What untold wealth! A thousand years ago Kalidas welcomed that first day of _Asarh_; and once in every year of my life that same day of _Asarh_ dawns in all its glory--that self-same day of the poet of old Ujjain, which has brought to countless men and women their joys of union, their pangs of separation. Every year one such great, time-hallowed day drops out of my life; and the time will come when this day of Kalidas, this day of the _Meghaduta_, this eternal first day of the Rains in Hindustan, shall come no more for me. When I realise this I feel I want to take a good look at nature, to offer a conscious welcome to each day's sunrise, to say farewell to each day's setting sun, as to an intimate friend. What a grand festival, what a vast theatre of festivity! And we cannot even fully respond to it, so far away do we live from the world! The light of the stars travels millions of miles to reach the earth, but it cannot reach our hearts--so many millions of miles further off are we!