XXIV 

 NIGHTINGALES IN INDIA 



THE nightingale shares with the Taj Mahal 

 the distinction of being an object on which 

 every person lavishes high praise. All 

 who hear the song of the nightingale go 

 into ecstasies over it ; similarly, every human being 

 who sets eyes on the Taj waxes enthusiastic at the 

 sight thereof. Some years ago a writer in the Globe 

 stated that a patient investigator compiled a list 

 of nearly two hundred epithets bestowed by poets 

 alone on the nightingale's song, and I doubt not that 

 an equally patiejit investigator coxild compile an 

 equally long list of adjectives lavished on the Taj 

 Mahal by those who have attempted to describe 

 that famous tomb. The consequence is that every 

 superlative in the English language has been ap- 

 propriated by some person, so that he who nowadays 

 wishes to bestow something original in the way of 

 praise on either the nightingale or the Taj is at his 

 wit's end to know what to say. Recently I met 

 in a railway train a Portuguese gentleman who was 

 paying a visit to India. Needless to say, I asked him 

 what he thought of the Taj. He promptly replied : 

 " Le Taj, ah! c'est un bijou." I feel that by way of 

 L I4S 



