Woman

Very often it is found that man's certainty is less infallible than woman's mere speculation. Fortunately or unfortunately, women no longer desire to equal men. Now they want to compete with men. We believe that no woman would put up with Tolstoy's ruthless blows. He makes bold to say, "Regard the society of women as a necessary unpleasantness of social life, and avoid it as much as possible." But Rabindranath extols women to the skies. "Woman is endowed with the passive qualities of chastity, modesty, devotion, and power of self-sacrifice in a greater measure than man is." Further his prophetic voice speaks: "… The women, the feebler creatures, — feebler at least in their outer aspects, — who are less muscular, and who have been behind-hand, always left under the shadow of those huge creatures, the men, — they will have their place, and those bigger creatures will have to give way."

To quote a still higher praise — rather, the highest: "Had man's mind not been energised by the inner working of woman's vital charm, he would never have attained his success. Of all the higher achievements of civilisation — the devotion of the toiler, the valour of the brave, the creations of the artist, — the secret spring is to be found in woman's influence."

Again he throws considerable light on woman in one of his conversations with Sri Dilip Kumar Roy: