Ernest Rhys was an English man of letters who, as editor of Everyman’s Library, a series of inexpensive editions of world classics, influenced the literary taste of his own and succeeding generations.
“Nothing could exceed the simplicity and unpretentiousness of this visitor from an older world. He was content to take things as he found them, and did not expect one to discourse all day on philosophy… and he could on rarer occasions be prevailed upon to sing his songs to the veritable wild and beautiful Indian melodies out of which they were born.”
Rhys added: “At other times, if the English sun was only good enough to shine, it was pleasure enough for him to sit on the grass in a Hampstead garden and listen to the noises of the town carried over the roofs and treetops. His understanding of life, his acceptance of its cares, his delight in its common occurrences, were not those we had hitherto associated with the notion of an Indian ascetic.”