Shambhala by Nicholas Roerich

Author:Nicholas Roerich
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 1930-05-21T04:00:00+00:00

* * *

And suddenly there arrived your letter from America, having successfully survived all the trials of the Chinese mail. Of course the letter had been opened and very clumsily closed again, but in it the Amban could see nothing terrible. The Amban did not consider it injurious that you, my friends, are beginning the construction of a new building. Of course it may have appeared rather strange to him that this building will be twenty-four stories high, whereas there is no necessity for the mighty yamen of the T’u-tu himself to be higher than one story. Of course he considers all your propositions about the school, lectures and books pretty dangerous, but he passed over them with a smile.

The people in America have a lot of money and they can occupy themselves with paintings. But the amban of today does not engage himself with such empty things and he does not even know a single name of any scientist or of any artist of contemporary China. And should you continue to question him more persistently, you would fall considerably in his opinion. Let him rather think that there are all sorts of queer persons in this world, busying themselves with most strange matters. “But these occupations are harmless as far as Yang-t’u-tu is concerned; why should we therefore destroy these queer fellows; let us return them their letters.” Thus thinks the Amban.

Maybe with the help of some Sart or Turkish merchant, or through a Chinese interpreter, the Amban will also read this letter. And maybe he will not like what I have said about the Kalmuks and about the cock fights arranged by Yang-t’u-tu. But seeing that every Amban considers it his duty to hate Yang-t’u-tu, he may smile as he reads the letter, and may say: “Well, let them know in America about our old man—he has a small heart.”

But now the Amban will be quite perplexed; we will speak a language entirely unknown to him.

My dear friends, at New Year, had you turned back or were you striving forward? A good year! Not a wish, but a command must be in this call! It must be good, for those who desire to work, who devote themselves to educational work.

December 17th, 1916, late at night the train left. It was unheated. Our relatives thought our departure was madness. Sviatoslav remembers exactly how we wrapped ourselves in all our blankets, at twenty-five degrees below zero. The dream of action! And the snow-covered rocks of Finland rose before us as the first messengers of the future Himalayan heights. E. I. was so impatient to go; she knew well the hardships of the way but nothing could stop her.

And you have now become so flexible, and all-armed to encounter obstacles and attacks, as though they were only inevitable stones and dust on the path. And before you are manifest the image of slander and distortion. You are becoming hardened and do not take to heart attacks in the press. You know that all this has its specific meaning.

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