Number of words: 196

I see in Gandhi something quite different from an inter nationalist of my type: he is a nationalist, but of the greatest, the loftiest kind, a kind which should be a model for all the petty, base, or even criminal nationalisms of Europe. An idealistic nationalist who wants his nation to be the greatest in spirit—or nothing. And while dominating the world by her moral grandeur, she must have fraternal relations with the rest of the world—but as an elder brother. It is noteworthy that Gandhi declares he would not give his daughter in marriage to a Muslim for anything in the world, even to the one he most highly esteemed.
Nor does he admit the least weakening in the Hindu religion. He goes so far as to say that he would not kill a cow to save a man. (This is not his respect for all animal life; it is the special cult of the cow.) He seems to me to correspond more closely to a great Catholic saint (like Francis of Assisi) than to a Tolstoy or a man of my type.
Excerpted from”page number 5, of Romain Rolland and Gandhi Correspondence.”