222 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE 



Her fervid faith in the long-dreamed-of Research Institute, 

 its possibilities for science and its promise for India, was 

 no small impulse and encouragement towards its realisation ; 

 and thus is explained the memorial fountain with its 

 bas-relief of ' Woman carrying Light to the Temple ' which 

 adorns the entrance of his Institute. 



Nivedita did not live to see the foundation of the 

 Institute, for her over-strenuous efforts on behalf of those 

 amongst whom she dwelt caused her untimely death in 1911. 

 In the memorial volume which he prepared, Mr. S. K. 

 Ratcliffe wrote of Nivedita : ' Those to whom she gave 

 the ennobling gift of her friendship hold the memory of that 

 gift as this world's highest benediction.' Lady Bcse, who 

 felt deeply the loss of her friend, wrote : ' As a woman, I knew 

 her in everyday life, full of austerity and possessed with a 

 longing for righteousness which shone round her like a pure 

 flame. Others will know her as the great moral and 

 intellectual force which came to us in time of great national 

 need/ 



Turning now to Bose's friendships among men, foremost 

 and greatest (appropriately first also for their present order 

 of treatment) has been that with the poet Rabindranath 

 Tagore. On the occasion of Bose's return from his success- 

 ful visit to Europe in 1896, Tagore called to congratulate 

 him and, not finding him at home, left on his work-table 

 a great blossom of magnolia, as a fitting and characteristic 

 message of regard. Since that time the two have been 

 increasingly together, each complementing and thereby 

 widening and deepening the other's characteristic outlook 

 on nature and life, and stimulating to his expression 

 accordingly. Once, on receiving an invitation from the poet 

 to stay with him at his house at Silaida on the river Padma, 

 Bose accepted it with the demand of the fullest and highest 

 hospitality his friend could render him that of a new story 

 to be written every day, and read to him every evening ! 

 It was in this fashion that one of the most beautiful series 

 of Tagore's short stories came to be written. 



