265

" I should instantly have said that they were un-
doubtedly by a European or rather an Englishman,
for the European temperament finds other vehicles of
expression. I am not only speaking of the purity and
grace of the language and surprisingly varied range
of the vocabulary or the chaste instinct that has led
you to choose words so restrained and fine and in keep-
ing with the trend of your own mood or emotion. But
I am speaking rather of the quality of mood and emo-
tion and of temperament, and it does astonish me
when I think or rather wonder if you have never felt
" The call of the Blood." Have you never felt in your
blood *he glorious heritage of your race ?, You who
have all the ecstasy of Hafiz, the wine of Omar, the
mystic intoxication of Ghalib, the supreme abandon of
Roomi as your own, you who have the burning sands of
Arab deserts and the mystic roses of Persian gardens as
\ your own inheritance ?"

" It is in your sonnets that you really begin to
find yourself and the right vehicle for the grave, sad
yearning and lofty thoughts and moods that are the
real revelations of yourself—as your friends do not
know you.... I do not say either that you have
added a new thought, a new vision to the existing wealth
of English literature but nevertheless they are beautiful,
with the recognised^beauty and,distinction of their
lineal descent from the great old traditions of the early
yiPrt.QrifrD^fl.ys. Those days of Wordsworth and his
large serenity, composure and dignity, a way incalcul-
ably remote from haunts of selfishness and strife, and
away from sense of folly and of crime."