The Danish Peace Academy

GANDHI AND NORDIC COUNTRIES

Collected by E. S. Reddy - EReddy@aol.com and Holger Terp

Letter, June 7, 1931

As at Sabarmati,

June 7, 1931

After having kept me waiting for many long months you have at last written to me. What a bad thing that Menon has not yet got his diploma. I had a letter from a mutual friend saying that you were disheartened over this failure. This is unworthy of you as I have known you. No failure, no adversity should dishearten you who have a living faith in God and his goodness. We do not know that every failure is a matter for sorrow nor do we know that every adversity is an infliction. Do we not often find that prosperity and success mean the undoing of people whereas failure and adversity chasten them?

I do not know that I am going to London. If I do, I will of course love to go to Denmark and if I went there I should not like to miss you. But it is no use speculating on a highly problematical thing.^¹⁴⁸

I do hear from Maria, now and again.

After dictating this I came upon another letter which mentions you more intimately. This letter is from Dr. Henning Dalsgaard. In that letter he says you are cheerful but he asks me whether I can do anything for Menon. I do not however find any concrete proposition. Have you any such in view? If you have, you will not hesitate to tell me and of course if I can do anything, you know also you can rely upon my doing it.^¹⁴⁹

Mrs. Esther Menon

M, Quest House

Selly Oak

N. Birmingham (England)

Source: SN17254; Collected Works, Volume 46, page 350

148 Gandhi visited Birmingham later in 1931 when he went to London to attend the Round Table Conference and met the Menons.

149 Please see also letter to Dr. Henning Dalsgaard dated June 7, 1931, above.

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