Page:Letters from Abroad.pdf/78

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LETTERS FROM ABROAD

69

Before this page is filled and I am called to the meeting, let me tell you it will not be necessary for you to come to Europe. For we shall not be long in Europe, and therefore the greater part of your travels will be over the seas. Wait for us in Santiniketan and celebrate the prodigal’s return in a fit manner.

CHICAGO, February 26, 1931.

I feel frightened at the ‘Fuji’-tive’ mood that seems to have come over you. But my mouth is closed, for I have been playing the truant the last few months, as I have been doing the best part of my life. But what fatality is this which pursues me, that when I am ready to come back to take my part in the last scene of a happy comedy, you ring down the curtain and disappear! It seems that when I land in India, Pearson will remain on this side of the Atlantic and you on the other side of the Pacific; and the wind from the East and the wind from the West will both bring to my heart the wail of separation.

I think I had some kind of premonition in my mind and was trying to secure you for myself for the full festival of my home-coming by inviting you to join us in our tour. But we all have been entangled in the big enterprise of doing good to the world, which unfortunately has 'The joke refers to an intended journey to Fiji.