Scribner's Monthly: An Illustrated Magazine for the People

And she was gathering mullein leaves; for soon
She stooped again, and was remade a stone.
Suppose her, then, a stone, and what the loss?
Granting that sound was frozen in those ears,
Within, more deep, in many lurking-places
Echoes were piping of a long-past laughter,
Barking of some one's dog, a carriage wheel,
Slamming of doors in a night-risen wind,
Sullen response of husband, croon of child.
Stones are not inhabited at the core.

There were two eyes, in a thick-wrinkled skin,
That fixed a mullein plant and plucked it up,
Or sent five fingers to surround it, so—

Fingers that rubbed the softness and remembered
Velvet and down, or once a horse's nose.
Granting the eyes' dead luster, yet within
Day floated, as it floats beyond old windows;
And memories were infinite as motes.

Her tongue, perhaps, anticipated tea;

Her throat already twitched to take it down;
Already, under her bonnet, she was back
Warming her oven carefully for the bread.
Both here and there she sat. By its own thought
Can a rock rest upon another hill?

In certain veins the blood ran thinly now,
And once tormented nerves were lying dead,
Yet only seemed to die. They still could throb;
Along their shrunken valleys still might race
The current from a womb that once was full.
And were that single daughter to return,
Be seen across the pasture, coming slow,

This palate would be suddenly stung with fire,
These bowels would ache to ashes. Were she stone,
I countered, she would never be consumed.

But when could she have learned that she was stone?

A hundred autumns he has wheeled

Above this solitary field.

Here he circled after corn

Before the oldest man was born.

When the oldest man is dead,
He will be unsurfeited.
See him crouch upon a limb
With his banquet under him.
Hear the echo of his caw
Give the skirting forest law.
Down he drops, and struts among
The rows of supper, tassel-hung.
Not a grain is left behind
That his polished beak can find.
He is full; he rises slow

To watch the evening come and
From the barren branch, his rest,

All is open to the west;

And the light along his wing

Is a sleek and oily thing.
Past an island floats the gaze
Of this ancientest of days.
Green and orange and purple dye
Is reflected in his eye.

There is an elm-tree in the wood

go.

Mahatma Gandhi

A Biographical Essay in Three Parts-Part II

BY ROMAIN ROLLAND

ULY 28, 1920, Gandhi announced that non-coöperation would be proclaimed August 1, and as a preparatory measure he ordered that a day of fasting and prayer be held the day before. He had no fear of governmental fury, but he feared the fury of the populace. He declared:

"Effective non-coöperation depends upon complete organization. Disorderliness comes from anger. There must be no violence. Violence means retrogression in our case, and useless waste of innocent lives. Above everything else, there must be complete order."

The tactics of non-coöperation had been defined two months before by Gandhi and the committee of noncoöperation, and they included the following measures: surrender of all titles of honor and honorary offices; non-participation in government loans; suspension by lawyers of practice, and settlement of court disputes by private arbitration; boycott of government schools by children and parents; boycott of the reformed councils; non-participation in government functions; refusal to accept any post; support of national independence.

In other words, the negative part of the program should be completed by constructive measures, which would

lead to the new India of the future.

This program specified the first steps to be taken, and we must admire the prudent sagacity of the leader who, after cranking up the enormous machine of Hindu revolt, stops it short, so to speak, and holds it back, pulsating, at the first turn. Gandhi is not planning civil disobedience for the present. He knows civil disobedience. He knows that at present people are not ripe for it, and he does not want to set them loose before he feels sure that they have mastered the art of self-control. So he launches non-coöperation. Non-coöperation, in this first stage, does not include a refusal to pay taxes. Gandhi waits.

August 1, 1920, Gandhi gives the signal for the movement by his famous letter to the viceroy, surrendering his decorations and honorary titles:

"It is not without a pang that I return the Kaisar-i-Hind Gold Medal granted to me by your predecessor for my humanitarian work in South Africa, the Zulu War Medal, granted in South Africa for my services as officer in charge of the Indian Volunteer Ambulance Corps in 1906, and the Boer War Medal for my services as assistant superintendent of the Indian Volunteer Stretcher-bearer Corps during the Boer War of 1899-1900."

But, he adds, after referring to the scenes that took place in the Punjab and the events back of the Califate movement:

sity of maintaining strict discipline. "We must evolve order out of chaos," he says, "introduce people's law instead of mob law."

Gandhi makes a list of suggestions. No raw volunteers should be accepted to assist in the organization of the big demonstrations. None but the most

"I can retain neither respect nor affection for a Government which has been moving from wrong to wrong in order to defend its immorality. The Government must be moved to experienced should be at the head. repentance.

"I have therefore ventured to suggest non-coöperation, which enables those who wish to disassociate themselves from the Government and which, if unattended by violence, must compel the Government to retrace its steps and undo its wrongs."

Gandhi's example was immediately followed. Hundreds of magistrates sent in their resignations, thousands of students left the colleges, the courts were abandoned, the schools were emptied. The All-India Congress, meeting in special session in Calcutta in the beginning of September, approved Gandhi's decisions by an overwhelming majority.

Never did Gandhi show himself a greater leader than during the first year of his action. He had to hold back the violence that lay smoldering, ready to leap into flame. He conHe considers "mobocracy" the greatest danger that menaces India. He hates war, but would rather have it than the insane violence of Caliban. "If India has to achieve her freedom by violence, let it be by the disciplined violence named war," not by mob revolts. Gandhi looks with disfavor upon all demonstrations and mass meetings, even in celebration of some joyous event, for out of a large crowd filled with noise and confusion frenzied violence may burst for no apparent reason. And he insists on the neces

Volunteers should always have a general instructions-book on their persons. They should be dispersed among the crowd and should learn flag and whistle signaling to pass instructions. National cries should be fixed and raised at the right moment. Crowds should be prevented from entering the railroad stations; they should be taught to stand back and leave a clear passage in the streets for people and carriages. Little children should never be brought out in the crowds, etc.

In other words, Gandhi makes himself the orchestra leader of his oceans of men.

But while the mob may break out into violence, unconsciously, blindly, moved by a sudden unreasonable impulse, there is a political faction which advocates violence deliberately and consciously. Many of the best men in India believe that national independence can be reached only by violent methods. This faction does not understand Gandhi's doctrine and does not believe in its political efficacy. It demands action, direct action. Gandhi receives anonymous letters urging him to stop advocating nonviolence, and, worse, others implying cynically that his doctrine of nonviolence is merely a mask and that the time has now come to throw it aside

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Scribner's Monthly: An Illustrated Magazine for the People, Volume 107