Remarks by Manmohan Ghose | V2Melody Quotations

“For years not a friendly step has crossed my threshold.”

A stark and economical expression of the profound isolation that marked his later life · Letter to a friend, 1916

“I have read the ‘Paroshpathor’ several times again, and am never tired of it—it seems to have soul-echoes of endless and haunting beauty.”

Capturing his responsiveness to the lingering emotional power of another writer's work · Letter to Rabindranath Tagore, 17 October 1898

“Anything would be better than the soul-killing routine of a Professor's life.”

A memorable expression of the strain he felt between institutional work and the life of the imagination · Letter to Rabindranath Tagore, 17 October 1898

“You cannot think how much I value your simple and sincere words of praise.”

Showing how deeply he valued encouragement from a fellow poet whose judgement he respected · Letter to Rabindranath Tagore, c. 1897–1898

“Often I go at day-break to stand and see the sun rise out of the mist and water, drinking the silence of the fresh air, the divine earliness of morning.”

Revealing the poet's contemplative delight in silence, landscape and the freshness of dawn · Letter to Laurence Binyon from Calcutta, c. 1897

“I know neither the people nor the language—all is strange and alien. I am four-fifths an Englishman if not entirely one.”

A candid expression of the divided cultural identity created by his English upbringing · Letter to Laurence Binyon, London period

“Love is as necessary to me as to every other human being. I may imprison myself in solitude and devote every hour to calm cultivation yet without this the richest gains of mind will in the end seem as dust.”

Insisting that intellectual achievement cannot compensate for the absence of human affection · Letter to Laurence Binyon, March 1889

“Books are my only refuge, which I seek not from choice but from necessity, and I try to allay a burning breast with hard intellectual labour.”

Describing reading and intellectual work as a refuge from emotional isolation · Letter to Laurence Binyon, March 1889

“At present then I am resolved to read and reflect more and produce less.”

A concise statement of his belief that reflection and learning should precede artistic production · Letter to Laurence Binyon, Oxford period

“I ask now for calm, for a self-centred collected soul, for patient powers of thought and expression.”

Expressing a desire for inward discipline, intellectual patience and creative concentration · Letter to Laurence Binyon, Oxford period

“I am still writing verse, but have done nothing worthy to send you... I sincerely doubt whether I should ever write a poem of any length.”

A revealing moment of artistic self-doubt from a poet still developing his voice · Letter to Laurence Binyon, Oxford period

“It is one of my great aims to inform and persuade people on that subject and I should reproach myself if I neglected this occasion.”

Showing his sense of responsibility to explain India's circumstances to an English audience · Letter to Laurence Binyon, Oxford period

“We do not want our civilization done away with, and European civilization brought in—we want the old framework of Indian civilization reconstructed and new life put into it.”

Arguing for renewal within Indian culture rather than its replacement by European models · Letter to Laurence Binyon, October 1887

“If you were to go to India and look with an unprejudiced eye, you would see that the system of Government is rotten to the core.”

A strikingly early expression of his opposition to injustice under British rule in India · Letter to Laurence Binyon, October 1887

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