INDIAN MUSIC. 191

and the dancing girl, who is mistress of every art that
charms the senses.

The music is to last all night; but you have to be
home ere dawn, and as you pass along the road in the
bright moonlight, you see that life, and the renunciation
of life, lead both to the same goal at last. Both ascetic
and musician shall be one Brahman with himself; it is
only a question of time, more or less, and time, as every
one knows, is unreal.

Oh Lord, look not upon my evil qualities !

Thy name, O Lord, is same-sightedness,

Make us both one Brahman.

This Hindu song of Surdas is said to have been sung by
a dancing girl at a Rajput court. And there comes to you
too the thought, that " Whoso seeth all beings in That
One, and That in all, henceforth shall doubt no more."

All this is passing away; when it is gone, men
will look back on it with hungry eyes, as some
have looked upon the life even of Mediaeval Europe,
or of Greece. When civilization has made of life a
business, it will be remembered that life was once an art;
when culture is the privilege of bookworms, it will be
remembered that it was once a part of life itself, not some-
thing achieved in stolen moments of relief from the serious
business of being an engine-driver, a clerk, or a Governor.
Let those who are still part of such a life take note of
it, that they may tell their children of it when it is noth-
ing but a memory. A ' practical' and * respectable7 world
has no place for the dreamer and the dancer; they belong
to the old Hindu towns where the big temples and the
chatrams te)l of the faith and munificence of kings and
merchant princes. In Madras, there is the military band,
or the music hall company on tour,—what does it want
with ascetics or with dancing girls ?