Paper Boats

THREE of these Essays were origin­ally published in East and West in more or less the present form. 'The Indian Beggar' appeared in Sep­tember, 1913, 'On Fishermen' in Feb­ruary, 1913, 'The Hindu Temple' in February, 1914. I sent a reprint of 'The Hindu Temple' to Mr. A. C. Benson, who promptly replied to me as follows, on March 2nd, 1914:'I have received your paper on the Hindu Temple and have read it with very real and lively interest. It throws a perfectly new light upon the whole question, and I am very grateful to you for bringing it before me in so picturesque and impressive a form. I cannot help feeling that a number of similar sketches on Indian Life and Customs would be of great service to us here in England.'This generous letter awakened in me the dream of authorship. I have been moved ever since with the joy. The Great War broke out in August, 1914, and Mr. A. C. Benson again, in one of his letters, dated April 11th, 1918, advised me to 'defer publication until affairs are more settled'. This delayed the launching of ray PAPER Boats till the present day.I take this opportunity to mention the name of Professor K. Sundara raman, whose Love has chastened my interest in Life and Letters; and of Mr. N. Raghunathan, who cheered me with the intimate and critical com­radeship of a decade.I am specially indebted also to Messrs. T. L. Crombie and F.Kunz for many valuable suggestions. If ever my Paper Boats reach distant ports, I owe it to their captaincy. The cargo is mine, mostly of strange and fragile flowers, but the difficult navigation is theirs of this floater without sail or ballast.It is not often that I feel as airily sure of finding a smiling 'thank you,' as now when I set afloat this really delightful fleet of ' Paper Boats It tells of the life of ' my village After a dissertation on Indian ' valiant beggars,' the Fisherman comes ashore, and we play cricket, and go to the temple, and meet a charming Pariah boy, and a Hindu pilgrim, and ' my grandmother,' a typical queen of the home, despotic and wholly lovable, 'my neighbor,' once a Sub-Registrar of Assurances, and finally the Jagath Guru-with the intrusive, unnecessary 'h' which reminds one that one is in Tamil land.The booklet makes us live in the village, and share in its life. The writer is a complete master of English, simple, dainty, with a sense of humour, steeped in the sweetness of affection, running through the living descriptions. I trust it will find many readers, who will like it as much as I do.