Early this morning, while still lying in bed, I heard the women at the bathing-place sending forth joyous peals of _Ulu! Ulu!_[1] The sound moved me curiously, though it is difficult to say why. [Footnote 1: A peculiar shrill cheer given by women on auspicious or festive occasions.] Perhaps such joyful outbursts put one in mind of the great stream of festive activity which goes on in this world, with most of which the individual man has no connection. The world is so immense, the concourse of men so vast, yet with how few has one any tie! Distant sounds of life, wafted near, bearing tidings from unknown homes, make the individual realise that the greater part of the world of men does not, cannot own or know him; then he feels deserted, loosely attached to the world, and a vague sadness creeps over him. Thus these cries of _Ulu! Ulu!_ made my life, past and future, seem like a long, long road, from the very ends of which they come to me. And this feeling colours for me the beginning of my day. As soon as the manager with his staff, and the ryots seeking audience, come upon the scene, this faint vista of past and future will be promptly elbowed out, and a very robust present will salute and stand before me. SHAZADPUR, _25th June 1892._ In to-day's letters there was a touch about A---'s singing which made my heart yearn with a nameless longing. Each of the little joys of life, which remain unappreciated amid the hubbub of the town, send in their claims to the heart when far from home. I love music, and there is no dearth of voices and instruments in Calcutta, yet I turn a deaf ear to them. But, though I may fail to realise it at the time, this needs must leave the heart athirst. As I read to-day's letters, I felt such a poignant desire to hear A---'s sweet song, I was at once sure that one of the many suppressed longings of creation which cry after fulfilment is for neglected joys within reach; while we are busy pursuing chimerical impossibilities we famish our lives.... The emptiness left by easy joys, untasted, is ever growing in my life. And the day may come when I shall feel that, could I but have the past back, I would strive no more after the unattainable, but drain to the full these little, unsought, everyday joys which life offers. SHAZADPUR, _27th June 1892._ Yesterday, in the afternoon, it clouded over so threateningly, I felt a sense of dread. I do not remember ever to have seen before such angry-looking clouds. Swollen masses of the deepest indigo blue were piled, one on top of the other, just above the horizon, looking like the puffed-out moustaches of some raging demon. Under the jagged lower edges of the clouds there shone forth a blood-red glare, as through the eyes of a monstrous, sky-filling bison, with tossing mane and with head lowered to strike the earth in fury.