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 +------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in | | this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of | | this document. | | | | Letters with macrons are represented as [=a]. | | | +------------------------------------------------------------+

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[Illustration: RABINDRANATH TAGORE FROM THE PORTRAIT IN COLOURS BY SASIKUMAR HESH]

MY REMINISCENCES

BY

SIR RABINDRANATH TAGORE

WITH FRONTISPIECE FROM THE PORTRAIT IN COLORS BY SASI KUMAR HESH

New York

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1917

_All rights reserved_

COPYRIGHT, 1916 AND 1917

BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1917. 

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

These Reminiscences were written and published by the Author in hisfiftieth year, shortly before he started on a trip to Europe and Americafor his failing health in 1912. It was in the course of this trip thathe wrote for the first time in the English language for publication. 

In these memory pictures, so lightly, even casually presented by theauthor there is, nevertheless, revealed a connected history of his innerlife together with that of the varying literary forms in which hisgrowing self found successive expression, up to the point at which bothhis soul and poetry attained maturity. 

This lightness of manner and importance of matter form a combination thetranslation of which into a different language is naturally a matter ofconsiderable difficulty. It was, in any case, a task which the presentTranslator, not being an original writer in the English language, wouldhardly have ventured to undertake, had there not been otherconsiderations. The translator's familiarity, however, with thepersons, scenes, and events herein depicted made it a temptationdifficult for him to resist, as well as a responsibility which he didnot care to leave to others not possessing these advantages, andtherefore more liable to miss a point, or give a wrong impression. 

The Translator, moreover, had the author's permission and advice to makea free translation, a portion of which was completed and approved by thelatter before he left India on his recent tour to Japan and America. 

In regard to the nature of the freedom taken for the purposes of thetranslation, it may be mentioned that those suggestions which might nothave been as clear to the foreign as to the Bengali reader have beenbrought out in a slightly more elaborate manner than in the originaltext; while again, in rare cases, others which depend on allusionsentirely unfamiliar to the non-Indian reader, have been omitted ratherthan spoil by an over-elaboration the simplicity and naturalness whichis the great feature of the original. 

There are no footnotes in the original. All the footnotes here givenhave been added by the Translator in the hope that they may be offurther assistance to the foreign reader. 

CONTENTS

 PAGE

Translator's Preface v

PART I

1. 1

2. Teaching Begins 3

3. Within and Without 8

PART II

4. Servocracy 25

5. The Normal School 30

6. Versification 35

7. Various Learning 38

8. My First Outing 44

9. Practising Poetry 48

PART III

10. Srikantha Babu 53

11. Our Bengali Course Ends 57

12. The Professor 60

13. My Father 67

14. A Journey with my Father 76

15. At the Himalayas 89

PART IV

16. My Return 101

17. Home Studies 111

18. My Home Environment 116

19. Literary Companions 125

20. Publishing 133

21. Bhanu Singha 135

22. Patriotism 138

23. The Bharati 147

PART V

24. Ahmedabad 155

25. England 157

26. Loken Palit 175

27. The Broken Heart 177

PART VI

28. European Music 189

29. Valmiki Pratibha 192

30. Evening Songs 199

31. An Essay on Music 203

32. The River-side 207

33. More About the Evening Songs 210

34. Morning Songs 214

PART VII

35. Rajendrahal Mitra 231

36. Karwar 235

37. Nature's Revenge 238

38. Pictures and Songs 241

39. An Intervening Period 244

40. Bankim Chandra 247

PART VIII

41. The Steamer Hulk 255

42. Bereavements 257

43. The Rains and Autumn 264

44. Sharps and Flats 267

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Rabindranath Tagore from the Portrait by S. K. Hesh _Frontispiece_

 _Facing Page_

Tagore in 1877 6

The Inner Garden Was My Paradise 14

The Ganges 54

Satya 64

Singing to My Father 82

The Himalayas 94

The Servant-Maids in the Verandah 106

My Eldest Brother 120

Moonlight 180

The Ganges Again 208

Karwar Beach 236

My Brother Jyotirindra 256

PART I

MY REMINISCENCES

(1)

I know not who paints the pictures on memory's canvas; but whoever hemay be, what he is painting are pictures; by which I mean that he is notthere with his brush simply to make a faithful copy of all that ishappening. He takes in and leaves out according to his taste. He makesmany a big thing small and small thing big. He has no compunction inputting into the background that which was to the fore, or bringing tothe front that which was behind. In short he is painting pictures, andnot writing history. 

Thus, over Life's outward aspect passes the series of events, and withinis being painted a set of pictures. The two correspond but are not one. 

We do not get the leisure to view thoroughly this studio within us. Portions of it now and then catch our eye, but the greater part remainsout of sight in the darkness. Why the ever-busy painter is painting;when he will have done; for what gallery his pictures are destined--whocan tell?

Some years ago, on being questioned as to the events of my past life, Ihad occasion to pry into this picture-chamber. I had thought to becontent with selecting some few materials for my Life's story. I thendiscovered, as I opened the door, that Life's memories are not Life'shistory, but the original work of an unseen Artist. The variegatedcolours scattered about are not reflections of outside lights, butbelong to the painter himself, and come passion-tinged from his heart;thereby unfitting the record on the canvas for use as evidence in acourt of law. 

But though the attempt to gather precise history from memory'sstorehouse may be fruitless, there is a fascination in looking over thepictures, a fascination which cast its spell on me. 

The road over which we journey, the wayside shelter in which we pause, are not pictures while yet we travel--they are too necessary, tooobvious. When, however, before turning into the evening resthouse, welook back upon the cities, fields, rivers and hills which we have beenthrough in Life's morning, then, in the light of the passing day, arethey pictures indeed. Thus, when my opportunity came, did I look back, and was engrossed. 

Was this interest aroused within me solely by a natural affection formy own past? Some personal feeling, of course, there must have been, butthe pictures had also an independent artistic value of their own. Thereis no event in my reminiscences worthy of being preserved for all time. But the quality of the subject is not the only justification for arecord. What one has truly felt, if only it can be made sensible toothers, is always of importance to one's fellow men. If pictures whichhave taken shape in memory can be brought out in words, they are worth aplace in literature. 

It is as literary material that I offer my memory pictures. To take themas an attempt at autobiography would be a mistake. In such a view thesereminiscences would appear useless as well as incomplete. 

(2) _Teaching Begins_

We three boys were being brought up together. Both my companions weretwo years older than I. When they were placed under their tutor, myteaching also began, but of what I learnt nothing remains in my memory. 

What constantly recurs to me is "The rain patters, the leaf quivers. "[1]I am just come to anchor after crossing the stormy region of the_kara_, _khala_[2] series; and I am reading "The rain patters, the leafquivers, " for me the first poem of the Arch Poet. Whenever the joy ofthat day comes back to me, even now, I realise why rhyme is so needfulin poetry. Because of it the words come to an end, and yet end not; theutterance is over, but not its ring; and the ear and the mind can go onand on with their game of tossing the rhyme to each other. Thus did therain patter and the leaves quiver again and again, the live-long day inmy consciousness. 

Another episode of this period of my early boyhood is held fast in mymind. 

We had an old cashier, Kailash by name, who was like one of the family. He was a great wit, and would be constantly cracking jokes witheverybody, old and young; recently married sons-in-law, new comers intothe family circle, being his special butts. There was room for thesuspicion that his humour had not deserted him even after death. Once myelders were engaged in an attempt to start a postal service with theother world by means of a planchette. At one of the sittings the pencilscrawled out the name of Kailash. He was asked as to the sort of lifeone led where he was. Not a bit of it, was the reply. "Why should youget so cheap what I had to die to learn?"

This Kailash used to rattle off for my special delectation a doggerelballad of his own composition. The hero was myself and there was aglowing anticipation of the arrival of a heroine. And as I listened myinterest would wax intense at the picture of this world-charming brideilluminating the lap of the future in which she sat enthroned. The listof the jewellery with which she was bedecked from head to foot, and theunheard of splendour of the preparations for the bridal, might haveturned older and wiser heads; but what moved the boy, and set wonderfuljoy pictures flitting before his vision, was the rapid jingle of thefrequent rhymes and the swing of the rhythm. 

These two literary delights still linger in my memory--and there is theother, the infants' classic: "The rain falls pit-a-pat, the tide comesup the river. "

The next thing I remember is the beginning of my school-life. One day Isaw my elder brother, and my sister's son Satya, also a little olderthan myself, starting off to school, leaving me behind, accounted unfit. I had never before ridden in a carriage nor even been out of the house. So when Satya came back, full of unduly glowing accounts of hisadventures on the way, I felt I simply could not stay at home. Our tutortried to dispel my illusion with sound advice and a resounding slap:"You're crying to go to school now, you'll have to cry a lot more to belet off later on. " I have no recollection of the name, features ordisposition of this tutor of ours, but the impression of his weightyadvice and weightier hand has not yet faded. Never in my life have Iheard a truer prophecy. 

My crying drove me prematurely into the Oriental Seminary. What I learntthere I have no idea, but one of its methods of punishment I still bearin mind. The boy who was unable to repeat his lessons was made to standon a bench with arms extended, and on his upturned palms were piled anumber of slates. It is for psychologists to debate how far this methodis likely to conduce to a better grasp of things. I thus began myschooling at an extremely tender age. 

My initiation into literature had its origin, at the same time, in thebooks which were in vogue in the servants' quarters. Chief among thesewere a Bengali translation of Chanakya's aphorisms, and the Ramayana ofKrittivasa. 

A picture of one day's reading of the Ramayana comes clearly back to me. 

[Illustration: Rabindranath Tagore in 1877]

The day was a cloudy one. I was playing about in the long verandah[3]overlooking the road. All of a sudden Satya, for some reason I do notremember, wanted to frighten me by shouting, "Policeman! Policeman!" Myideas of the duties of policemen were of an extremely vague description. One thing I was certain about, that a person charged with crime onceplaced in a policeman's hands would, as sure as the wretch caught in acrocodile's serrated grip, go under and be seen no more. Not knowing howan innocent boy could escape this relentless penal code, I boltedtowards the inner apartments, with shudders running down my back forblind fear of pursuing policemen. I broke to my mother the news of myimpending doom, but it did not seem to disturb her much. However, notdeeming it safe to venture out again, I sat down on the sill of mymother's door to read the dog-eared Ramayana, with a marbled papercover, which belonged to her old aunt. Alongside stretched the verandahrunning round the four sides of the open inner quadrangle, on which hadfallen the faint afternoon glow of the clouded sky, and finding meweeping over one of its sorrowful situations my great-aunt came and tookaway the book from me. 

(3) _Within and Without_

Luxury was a thing almost unknown in the days of my infancy. Thestandard of living was then, as a whole, much more simple than it isnow. Apart from that, the children of our household were entirely freefrom the fuss of being too much looked after. The fact is that, whilethe process of looking after may be an occasional treat for theguardians, to the children it is always an unmitigated nuisance. 

We used to be under the rule of the servants. To save themselves troublethey had almost suppressed our right of free movement. But the freedomof not being petted made up even for the harshness of this bondage, forour minds were left clear of the toils of constant coddling, pamperingand dressing-up. 

Our food had nothing to do with delicacies. A list of our articles ofclothing would only invite the modern boy's scorn. On no pretext did wewear socks or shoes till we had passed our tenth year. In the coldweather a second cotton tunic over the first one sufficed. It neverentered our heads to consider ourselves ill-off for that reason. It wasonly when old Niyamat, the tailor, would forget to put a pocket into oneof our tunics that we complained, for no boy has yet been born so pooras not to have the wherewithal to stuff his pockets; nor, by a mercifuldispensation of providence, is there much difference between the wealthof boys of rich and of poor parentage. We used to have a pair ofslippers each, but not always where we had our feet. Our habit ofkicking the slippers on ahead, and catching them up again, made themwork none the less hard, through effectually defeating at every step thereason of their being. 

Our elders were in every way at a great distance from us, in their dressand food, living and doing, conversation and amusement. We caughtglimpses of these, but they were beyond our reach. Elders have becomecheap to modern children; they are too readily accessible, and so areall objects of desire. Nothing ever came so easily to us. Many a trivialthing was for us a rarity, and we lived mostly in the hope of attaining, when we were old enough, the things which the distant future held intrust for us. The result was that what little we did get we enjoyed tothe utmost; from skin to core nothing was thrown away. The modern childof a well-to-do family nibbles at only half the things he gets; thegreater part of his world is wasted on him. 

Our days were spent in the servants' quarters in the south-east cornerof the outer apartments. One of our servants was Shyam, a dark chubbyboy with curly locks, hailing from the District of Khulna. He would putme into a selected spot and, tracing a chalk line all round, warn mewith solemn face and uplifted finger of the perils of transgressing thisring. Whether the threatened danger was material or spiritual I neverfully understood, but a great fear used to possess me. I had read in theRamayana of the tribulations of Sita for having left the ring drawn byLakshman, so it was not possible for me to be sceptical of its potency. 

Just below the window of this room was a tank with a flight of masonrysteps leading down into the water; on its west bank, along the gardenwall, an immense banyan tree; to the south a fringe of cocoanut palms. Ringed round as I was near this window I would spend the whole daypeering through the drawn Venetian shutters, gazing and gazing on thisscene as on a picture book. From early morning our neighbours would dropin one by one to have their bath. I knew the time for each one toarrive. I was familiar with the peculiarities of each one's toilet. Onewould stop up his ears with his fingers as he took his regulation numberof dips, after which he would depart. Another would not venture on acomplete immersion but be content with only squeezing his wet towelrepeatedly over his head. A third would carefully drive the surfaceimpurities away from him with a rapid play of his arms, and then on asudden impulse take his plunge. There was one who jumped in from the topsteps without any preliminaries at all. Another would walk slowly in, step by step, muttering his morning prayers the while. One was always ina hurry, hastening home as soon as he was through with his dip. Anotherwas in no sort of hurry at all, taking his bath leisurely, followed witha good rub-down, and a change from wet bathing clothes into clean ones, including a careful adjustment of the folds of his waist cloth, endingwith a turn or two in the outer[4] garden, and the gathering of flowers, with which he would finally saunter slowly homewards, radiating the coolcomfort of his refreshed body, as he went. This would go on till it waspast noon. Then the bathing places would be deserted and become silent. Only the ducks remained, paddling about after water snails, or busypreening their feathers, the live-long day. 

When solitude thus reigned over the water, my whole attention would bedrawn to the shadows under the banyan tree. Some of its aerial roots, creeping down along its trunk, had formed a dark complication of coilsat its base. It seemed as if into this mysterious region the laws of theuniverse had not found entrance; as if some old-world dream-land hadescaped the divine vigilance and lingered on into the light of modernday. Whom I used to see there, and what those beings did, it is notpossible to express in intelligible language. It was about this banyantree that I wrote later:

 With tangled roots hanging down from your branches, O ancient banyan tree, You stand still day and night, like an ascetic at his penances, Do you ever remember the child whose fancy played with your shadows?

Alas! that banyan tree is no more, nor the piece of water which servedto mirror the majestic forest-lord! Many of those who used to bathethere have also followed into oblivion the shade of the banyan tree. Andthat boy, grown older, is counting the alternations of light anddarkness which penetrate the complexities with which the roots he hasthrown off on all sides have encircled him. 

Going out of the house was forbidden to us, in fact we had not even thefreedom of all its parts. We perforce took our peeps at nature frombehind the barriers. Beyond my reach there was this limitless thingcalled the Outside, of which flashes and sounds and scents usedmomentarily to come and touch me through its interstices. It seemed towant to play with me through the bars with so many gestures. But it wasfree and I was bound--there was no way of meeting. So the attraction wasall the stronger. The chalk line has been wiped away to-day, but theconfining ring is still there. The distant is just as distant, theoutside is still beyond me; and I am reminded of the poem I wrote when Iwas older:

 The tame bird was in a cage, the free bird was in the forest, They met when the time came, it was a decree of fate. The free bird cries, "O my love, let us fly to wood. " The cage bird whispers, "Come hither, let us both live in the cage. " Says the free bird, "Among bars, where is there room to spread one's wings?" "Alas, " cries the cage bird, "I should not know where to sit perched in the sky. "

The parapets of our terraced roofs were higher than my head. When I hadgrown taller; when the tyranny of the servants had relaxed; when, withthe coming of a newly married bride into the house, I had achieved somerecognition as a companion of her leisure, then did I sometimes come upto the terrace in the middle of the day. By that time everybody in thehouse would have finished their meal; there would be an interval in thebusiness of the household; over the inner apartments would rest thequiet of the midday siesta; the wet bathing clothes would be hangingover the parapets to dry; the crows would be picking at the leavingsthrown on the refuse heap at the corner of the yard; in the solitude ofthat interval the caged bird would, through the gaps in the parapet, commune bill to bill with the free bird!

[Illustration: The Inner Garden was My Paradise]

I would stand and gaze.... My glance first falls on the row of cocoanuttrees on the further edge of our inner garden. Through these are seenthe "Singhi's Garden" with its cluster of huts[5] and tank, and on theedge of the tank the dairy of our milkwoman, Tara; still further on, mixed up with the tree-tops, the various shapes and different heights ofthe terraced roofs of Calcutta, flashing back the blazing whiteness ofthe midday sun, stretch right away into the grayish blue of the easternhorizon. And some of these far distant dwellings from which standforth their roofed stair-ways leading up to the terrace, look as if withuplifted finger and a wink they are hinting to me of the mysteries oftheir interiors. Like the beggar at the palace door who imaginesimpossible treasures to be held in the strong rooms closed to him, I canhardly tell of the wealth of play and freedom which these unknowndwellings seem to me crowded with. From the furthest depth of the skyfull of burning sunshine overhead the thin shrill cry of a kite reachesmy ear; and from the lane adjoining Singhi's Garden comes up, past thehouses silent in their noonday slumber, the sing-song of thebangle-seller--_chai choori chai_ ... And my whole being would fly awayfrom the work-a-day world. 

My father hardly ever stayed at home, he was constantly roaming about. His rooms on the third storey used to remain shut up. I would pass myhands through the venetian shutters, and thus opening the latch get thedoor open, and spend the afternoon lying motionless on his sofa at thesouth end. First of all it was a room always closed, and then there wasthe stolen entry, this gave it a deep flavour of mystery; further thebroad empty expanse of terrace to the south, glowing in the rays of thesun would set me day-dreaming. 

There was yet another attraction. The water-works had just been startedin Calcutta, and in the first exuberance of its triumphant entry it didnot stint even the Indian quarters of their supply. In that golden ageof pipe water, it used to flow even up to my father's third storeyrooms. And turning on the shower tap I would indulge to my heart'scontent in an untimely bath. Not so much for the comfort of it, as togive rein to my desire to do just as I fancied. The alternation of thejoy of liberty, and the fear of being caught, made that shower ofmunicipal water send arrows of delight thrilling into me. 

It was perhaps because the possibility of contact with the outside wasso remote that the joy of it came to me so much more readily. Whenmaterial is in profusion, the mind gets lazy and leaves everything toit, forgetting that for a successful feast of joy its internal equipmentcounts for more than the external. This is the chief lesson which hisinfant state has to teach to man. There his possessions are few andtrivial, yet he needs no more for his happiness. The world of play isspoilt for the unfortunate youngster who is burdened with an unlimitedquantity of playthings. 

To call our inner garden a garden is to say a deal too much. Itsproperties consisted of a citron tree, a couple of plum trees ofdifferent varieties, and a row of cocoanut trees. In the centre was apaved circle the cracks of which various grasses and weeds had invadedand planted in them their victorious standards. Only those floweringplants which refused to die of neglect continued uncomplainingly toperform their respective duties without casting any aspersions on thegardener. In the northern corner was a rice-husking shed, where theinmates of the inner apartments would occasionally foregather whenhousehold necessity demanded. This last vestige of rural life has sinceowned defeat and slunk away ashamed and unnoticed. 

None the less I suspect that Adam's garden of Eden could hardly havebeen better adorned than this one of ours; for he and his paradise werealike naked; they needed not to be furnished with material things. It isonly since his tasting of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and tillhe can fully digest it, that man's need for external furniture andembellishment persistently grows. Our inner garden was my paradise; itwas enough for me. I well remember how in the early autumn dawn I wouldrun there as soon as I was awake. A scent of dewy grass and foliagewould rush to meet me, and the morning with its cool fresh sunlightwould peep out at me over the top of the Eastern garden wall from belowthe trembling tassels of the cocoanut palms. 

There is another piece of vacant land to the north of the house which tothis day we call the _golabari_ (barn house). The name shows that insome remote past this must have been the place where the year's store ofgrain used to be kept in a barn. Then, as with brother and sister ininfancy, the likeness between town and country was visible all over. Nowthe family resemblance can hardly be traced. This _golabari_ would be myholiday haunt if I got the chance. It would hardly be correct to saythat I went there to play--it was the place not play, which drew me. Whythis was so, is difficult to tell. Perhaps its being a deserted bit ofwaste land lying in an out-of-the-way corner gave it its charm for me. It was entirely outside the living quarters and bore no stamp ofusefulness; moreover it was as unadorned as it was useless, for no onehad ever planted anything there; it was doubtless for these reasons thatthis desert spot offered no resistance to the free play of the boy'simagination. Whenever I got any loop-hole to evade the vigilance of mywarders and could contrive to reach the _golabari_ I felt I had aholiday indeed. 

There was yet another place in our house which I have even yet notsucceeded in finding out. A little girl playmate of my own age calledthis the "King's palace. "[6] "I have just been there, " she wouldsometimes tell me. But somehow the propitious moment never turned upwhen she could take me along with her. That was a wonderful place, andits playthings were as wonderful as the games that were played there. Itseemed to me it must be somewhere very near--perhaps in the first orsecond storey; the only thing was one never seemed to be able to getthere. How often have I asked my companion, "Only tell me, is it reallyinside the house or outside?" And she would always reply, "No, no, it'sin this very house. " I would sit and wonder: "Where then can it be?Don't I know all the rooms of the house?" Who the king might be I nevercared to inquire; where his palace is still remains undiscovered; thismuch was clear--the king's palace was within our house. 

Looking back on childhood's days the thing that recurs most often is themystery which used to fill both life and world. Something undreamt ofwas lurking everywhere and the uppermost question every day was: when, Oh! when would we come across it? It was as if nature held something inher closed hands and was smilingly asking us: "What d'you think I have?"What was impossible for her to have was the thing we had no idea of. 

Well do I remember the custard apple seed which I had planted and keptin a corner of the south verandah, and used to water every day. Thethought that the seed might possibly grow into a tree kept me in a greatstate of fluttering wonder. Custard apple seeds still have the habit ofsprouting, but no longer to the accompaniment of that feeling of wonder. The fault is not in the custard apple but in the mind. We had oncestolen some rocks from an elder cousin's rockery and started a littlerockery of our own. The plants which we sowed in its interstices werecared for so excessively that it was only because of their vegetablenature that they managed to put up with it till their untimely death. Words cannot recount the endless joy and wonder which this miniaturemountain-top held for us. We had no doubt that this creation of ourswould be a wonderful thing to our elders also. The day that we sought toput this to the proof, however, the hillock in the corner of our room, with all its rocks, and all its vegetation, vanished. The knowledge thatthe schoolroom floor was not a proper foundation for the erection of amountain was imparted so rudely, and with such suddenness, that it gaveus a considerable shock. The weight of stone of which the floor wasrelieved settled on our minds when we realised the gulf between ourfancies and the will of our elders. 

How intimately did the life of the world throb for us in those days!Earth, water, foliage and sky, they all spoke to us and would not bedisregarded. How often were we struck by the poignant regret that wecould only see the upper storey of the earth and knew nothing of itsinner storey. All our planning was as to how we could pry beneath itsdust-coloured cover. If, thought we, we could drive in bamboo afterbamboo, one over the other, we might perhaps get into some sort of touchwith its inmost depths. 

During the _Magh_ festival a series of wooden pillars used to be plantedround the outer courtyard for supporting the chandeliers. Digging holesfor these would begin on the first of _Magh_. The preparations forfestivity are ever interesting to young folk. But this digging had aspecial attraction for me. Though I had watched it done year afteryear--and seen the hole grow bigger and bigger till the digger hadcompletely disappeared inside, and yet nothing extraordinary, nothingworthy of the quest of prince or knight, had ever appeared--yet everytime I had the feeling that the lid being lifted off a chest of mystery. I felt that a little bit more digging would do it. Year after yearpassed, but that bit never got done. There was a pull at the curtain butit was not drawn. The elders, thought I, can do whatever they please, why do they rest content with such shallow delving? If we young folk hadthe ordering of it, the inmost mystery of the earth would no longer beallowed to remain smothered in its dust covering. 

And the thought that behind every part of the vault of blue reposed themysteries of the sky would also spur our imaginings. When our Pundit, inillustration of some lesson in our Bengali science primer, told us thatthe blue sphere was not an enclosure, how thunderstruck we were! "Putladder upon ladder, " said he, "and go on mounting away, but you willnever bump your head. " He must be sparing of his ladders, I opined, andquestioned with a rising inflection, "And what if we put more ladders, and more, and more?" When I realised that it was fruitless multiplyingladders I remained dumbfounded pondering over the matter. Surely, Iconcluded, such an astounding piece of news must be known only to thosewho are the world's schoolmasters!

PART II

(4) _Servocracy_

In the history of India the regime of the Slave Dynasty was not a happyone. In going back to the reign of the servants in my own life's historyI can find nothing glorious or cheerful touching the period. There werefrequent changes of king, but never a variation in the code ofrestraints and punishments with which we were afflicted. We, however, had no opportunity at the time for philosophising on the subject; ourbacks bore as best they could the blows which befell them: and weaccepted as one of the laws of the universe that it is for the Big tohurt and for the Small to be hurt. It has taken me a long time to learnthe opposite truth that it is the Big who suffer and the Small who causesuffering. 

The quarry does not view virtue and vice from the standpoint of thehunter. That is why the alert bird, whose cry warns its fellows beforethe shot has sped, gets abused as vicious. We howled when we werebeaten, which our chastisers did not consider good manners; it was infact counted sedition against the servocracy. I cannot forget how, inorder effectively to suppress such sedition, our heads used to becrammed into the huge water jars then in use; distasteful, doubtless, was this outcry to those who caused it; moreover, it was likely to haveunpleasant consequences. 

I now sometimes wonder why such cruel treatment was meted out to us bythe servants. I cannot admit that there was on the whole anything in ourbehaviour or demeanour to have put us beyond the pale of human kindness. The real reason must have been that the whole of our burden was thrownon the servants, and the whole burden is a thing difficult to bear evenfor those who are nearest and dearest. If children are only allowed tobe children, to run and play about and satisfy their curiosity, itbecomes quite simple. Insoluble problems are only created if you try toconfine them inside, keep them still or hamper their play. Then does theburden of the child, so lightly borne by its own childishness, fallheavily on the guardian--like that of the horse in the fable which wascarried instead of being allowed to trot on its own legs: and thoughmoney procured bearers even for such a burden it could not prevent themtaking it out of the unlucky beast at every step. 

Of most of these tyrants of our childhood I remember only their cuffingsand boxings, and nothing more. Only one personality stands out in mymemory. 

His name was Iswar. He had been a village schoolmaster before. He was aprim, proper and sedately dignified personage. The Earth seemed tooearthy for him, with too little water to keep it sufficiently clean; sothat he had to be in a constant state of warfare with its chronic soiledstate. He would shoot his water-pot into the tank with a lightningmovement so as to get his supply from an uncontaminated depth. It was hewho, when bathing in the tank, would be continually thrusting away thesurface impurities till he took a sudden plunge expecting, as it were, to catch the water unawares. When walking his right arm stood out at anangle from his body, as if, so it seemed to us, he could not trust thecleanliness even of his own garments. His whole bearing had theappearance of an effort to keep clear of the imperfections which, through unguarded avenues, find entrance into earth, water and air, andinto the ways of men. Unfathomable was the depth of his gravity. Withhead slightly tilted he would mince his carefully selected words in adeep voice. His literary diction would give food for merriment to ourelders behind his back, some of his high-flown phrases finding apermanent place in our family repertoire of witticisms. But I doubtwhether the expressions he used would sound as remarkable to-day;showing how the literary and spoken languages, which used to be as skyfrom earth asunder, are now coming nearer each other. 

This erstwhile schoolmaster had discovered a way of keeping us quiet inthe evenings. Every evening he would gather us round the crackedcastor-oil lamp and read out to us stories from the Ramayana andMahabharata. Some of the other servants would also come and join theaudience. The lamp would be throwing huge shadows right up to the beamsof the roof, the little house lizards catching insects on the walls, thebats doing a mad dervish dance round and round the verandahs outside, and we listening in silent open-mouthed wonder. 

I still remember, on the evening we came to the story of Kusha and Lava, and those two valiant lads were threatening to humble to the dust therenown of their father and uncles, how the tense silence of that dimlylighted room was bursting with eager anticipation. It was getting late, our prescribed period of wakefulness was drawing to a close, and yet thedenouement was far off. 

At this critical juncture my father's old follower Kishori came to therescue, and finished the episode for us, at express speed, to thequickstep of Dasuraya's jingling verses. The impression of the soft slowchant of Krittivasa's[7] fourteen-syllabled measure was swept clean awayand we were left overwhelmed by a flood of rhymes and alliterations. 

On some occasions these readings would give rise to shastricdiscussions, which would at length be settled by the depth of Iswar'swise pronouncements. Though, as one of the children's servants, his rankin our domestic society was below that of many, yet, as with oldGrandfather Bhisma in the Mahabharata, his supremacy would assert itselffrom his seat, below his juniors. 

Our grave and reverend servitor had one weakness to which, for the sakeof historical accuracy, I feel bound to allude. He used to take opium. This created a craving for rich food. So that when he brought us ourmorning goblets of milk the forces of attraction in his mind would begreater than those of repulsion. If we gave the least expression to ournatural repugnance for this meal, no sense of responsibility for ourhealth could prompt him to press it on us a second time. 

Iswar also held somewhat narrow views as to our capacity for solidnourishment. We would sit down to our evening repast and a quantity of_luchis_[8] heaped on a thick round wooden tray would be placed beforeus. He would begin by gingerly dropping a few on each platter, from asufficient height to safeguard himself from contamination[9]--likeunwilling favours, wrested from the gods by dint of importunity, didthey descend, so dexterously inhospitable was he. Next would come theinquiry whether he should give us any more. I knew the reply which wouldbe most gratifying, and could not bring myself to deprive him by askingfor another help. 

Then again Iswar was entrusted with a daily allowance of money forprocuring our afternoon light refreshment. He would ask us every morningwhat we should like to have. We knew that to mention the cheapest wouldbe accounted best, so sometimes we ordered a light refection of puffedrice, and at others an indigestible one of boiled gram or roastedgroundnuts. It was evident that Iswar was not as painstakinglypunctilious in regard to our diet as with the shastric proprieties. 

(5) _The Normal School_

While at the Oriental Seminary I had discovered a way out of thedegradation of being a mere pupil. I had started a class of my own in acorner of our verandah. The wooden bars of the railing were my pupils, and I would act the schoolmaster, cane in hand, seated on a chair infront of them. I had decided which were the good boys and which thebad--nay, further, I could distinguish clearly the quiet from thenaughty, the clever from the stupid. The bad rails had suffered so muchfrom my constant caning that they must have longed to give up the ghosthad they been alive. And the more scarred they got with my strokes theworse they angered me, till I knew not how to punish them enough. Noneremain to bear witness to-day how tremendously I tyrannised over thatpoor dumb class of mine. My wooden pupils have since been replaced bycast-iron railings, nor have any of the new generation taken up theireducation in the same way--they could never have made the sameimpression. 

I have since realised how much easier it is to acquire the manner thanthe matter. Without an effort had I assimilated all the impatience, theshort temper, the partiality and the injustice displayed by my teachersto the exclusion of the rest of their teaching. My only consolation isthat I had not the power of venting these barbarities on any sentientcreature. Nevertheless the difference between my wooden pupils and thoseof the Seminary did not prevent my psychology from being identical withthat of its schoolmasters. 

I could not have been long at the Oriental Seminary, for I was still oftender age when I joined the Normal School. The only one of its featureswhich I remember is that before the classes began all the boys had tosit in a row in the gallery and go through some kind of singing orchanting of verses--evidently an attempt at introducing an element ofcheerfulness into the daily routine. 

Unfortunately the words were English and the tune quite as foreign, sothat we had not the faintest notion what sort of incantation we werepractising; neither did the meaningless monotony of the performance tendto make us cheerful. This failed to disturb the serene self-satisfactionof the school authorities at having provided such a treat; they deemedit superfluous to inquire into the practical effect of their bounty;they would probably have counted it a crime for the boys not to bedutifully happy. Anyhow they rested content with taking the song as theyfound it, words and all, from the self-same English book which hadfurnished the theory. 

The language into which this English resolved itself in our mouthscannot but be edifying to philologists. I can recall only one line:

_Kallokee pullokee singill mellaling mellaling mellaling. _

After much thought I have been able to guess at the original of a partof it. Of what words _kallokee_ is the transformation still baffles me. The rest I think was:

_... Full of glee, singing merrily, merrily, merrily!_

As my memories of the Normal School emerge from haziness and becomeclearer they are not the least sweet in any particular. Had I been ableto associate with the other boys, the woes of learning might not haveseemed so intolerable. But that turned out to be impossible--so nastywere most of the boys in their manners and habits. So, in the intervalsof the classes, I would go up to the second storey and while away thetime sitting near a window overlooking the street. I would count: oneyear--two years--three years--; wondering how many such would have to begot through like this. 

Of the teachers I remember only one, whose language was so foul that, out of sheer contempt for him, I steadily refused to answer any one ofhis questions. Thus I sat silent throughout the year at the bottom ofhis class, and while the rest of the class was busy I would be leftalone to attempt the solution of many an intricate problem. 

One of these, I remember, on which I used to cogitate profoundly, washow to defeat an enemy without having arms. My preoccupation with thisquestion, amidst the hum of the boys reciting their lessons, comes backto me even now. If I could properly train up a number of dogs, tigersand other ferocious beasts, and put a few lines of these on the field ofbattle, that, I thought, would serve very well as an inspiritingprelude. With our personal prowess let loose thereafter, victory shouldby no means be out of reach. And, as the picture of this wonderfullysimple strategy waxed vivid in my imagination, the victory of my sidebecame assured beyond doubt. 

While work had not yet come into my life I always found it easy todevise short cuts to achievement; since I have been working I find thatwhat is hard is hard indeed, and what is difficult remains difficult. This, of course, is less comforting; but nowhere near so bad as thediscomfort of trying to take shortcuts. 

When at length a year of that class had passed, we were examined inBengali by Pandit Madhusudan Vachaspati. I got the largest number ofmarks of all the boys. The teacher complained to the school authoritiesthat there had been favouritism in my case. So I was examined a secondtime, with the superintendent of the school seated beside the examiner. This time, also, I got a top place. 

(6) _Versification_

I could not have been more than eight years old at the time. Jyoti, ason of a niece of my father's, was considerably older than I. He hadjust gained an entrance into English literature, and would reciteHamlet's soliloquy with great gusto. Why he should have taken it intohis head to get a child, as I was, to write poetry I cannot tell. Oneafternoon he sent for me to his room, and asked me to try and make up averse; after which he explained to me the construction of the _payar_metre of fourteen syllables. 

I had up to then only seen poems in printed books--no mistakes pennedthrough, no sign to the eye of doubt or trouble or any human weakness. Icould not have dared even to imagine that any effort of mine couldproduce such poetry. 

One day a thief had been caught in our house. Overpowered by curiosity, yet in fear and trembling, I ventured to the spot to take a peep at him. I found he was just an ordinary man! And when he was somewhat roughlyhandled by our door-keeper I felt a great pity. I had a similarexperience with poetry. 

When, after stringing together a few words at my own sweet will, I foundthem turned into a _payar_ verse I felt I had no illusions left aboutthe glories of poetising. So when poor Poetry is mishandled, even now Ifeel as unhappy as I did about the thief. Many a time have I been movedto pity and yet been unable to restrain impatient hands itching for theassault. Thieves have scarcely suffered so much, and from so many. 

The first feeling of awe once overcome there was no holding me back. Imanaged to get hold of a blue-paper manuscript book by the favour of oneof the officers of our estate. With my own hands I ruled it with pencillines, at not very regular intervals, and thereon I began to writeverses in a large childish scrawl. 

Like a young deer which butts here, there and everywhere with its newlysprouting horns, I made myself a nuisance with my budding poetry. Moreso my elder[10] brother, whose pride in my performance impelled him tohunt about the house for an audience. 

I recollect how, as the pair of us, one day, were coming out of theestate offices on the ground floor, after a conquering expeditionagainst the officers, we came across the editor of "The National Paper, "Nabagopal Mitter, who had just stepped into the house. My brothertackled him without further ado: "Look here, Nabagopal Babu! won't youlisten to a poem which Rabi has written?" The reading forthwithfollowed. 

My works had not as yet become voluminous. The poet could carry all hiseffusions about in his pockets. I was writer, printer and publisher, allin one; my brother, as advertiser, being my only colleague. I hadcomposed some verses on The Lotus which I recited to Nabagopal Babu thenand there, at the foot of the stairs, in a voice pitched as high as myenthusiasm. "Well done!" said he with a smile. "But what is a_dwirepha_?"[11]

How I had got hold of this word I do not remember. The ordinary namewould have fitted the metre quite as well. But this was the one word inthe whole poem on which I had pinned my hopes. It had doubtless dulyimpressed our officers. But curiously enough Nabagopal Babu did notsuccumb to it--on the contrary he smiled! He could not be anunderstanding man, I felt sure. I never read poetry to him again. I havesince added many years to my age but have not been able to improve uponmy test of what does or does not constitute understanding in my hearer. However Nabagopal Babu might smile, the word _dwirepha_, like a beedrunk with honey, stuck to its place, unmoved. 

(7) _Various Learning_

One of the teachers of the Normal School also gave us private lessons athome. His body was lean, his features dry, his voice sharp. He lookedlike a cane incarnate. His hours were from six to half-past-nine in themorning. With him our reading ranged from popular literary and sciencereaders in Bengali to the epic of Meghnadvadha. 

My third brother was very keen on imparting to us a variety ofknowledge. So at home we had to go through much more than what wasrequired by the school course. We had to get up before dawn and, clad inloin-cloths, begin with a bout or two with a blind wrestler. Without apause we donned our tunics on our dusty bodies, and started on ourcourses of literature, mathematics, geography and history. On our returnfrom school our drawing and gymnastic masters would be ready for us. Inthe evening Aghore Babu came for our English lessons. It was only afternine that we were free. 

On Sunday morning we had singing lessons with Vishnu. Then, almost everySunday, came Sitanath Dutta to give us demonstrations in physicalscience. The last were of great interest to me. I remember distinctlythe feeling of wonder which filled me when he put some water, withsawdust in it, on the fire in a glass vessel, and showed us how thelightened hot water came up, and the cold water went down and howfinally the water began to boil. I also felt a great elation the day Ilearnt that water is a separable part of milk, and that milk thickenswhen boiled because the water frees itself as vapour from the connexion. Sunday did not feel Sunday-like unless Sitanath Babu turned up. 

There was also an hour when we would be told all about human bones by apupil of the Campbell Medical School, for which purpose a skeleton, withthe bones fastened together by wires was hung up in our schoolroom. Andfinally, time was also found for Pandit Heramba Tatwaratna to come andget us to learn by rote rules of Sanscrit grammar. I am not sure whichof them, the names of the bones or the _sutras_ of the grammarian, werethe more jaw-breaking. I think the latter took the palm. 

We began to learn English after we had made considerable progress inlearning through the medium of Bengali. Aghore Babu, our English tutor, was attending the Medical College, so he came to teach us in theevening. 

Books tell us that the discovery of fire was one of the biggestdiscoveries of man. I do not wish to dispute this. But I cannot helpfeeling how fortunate the little birds are that their parents cannotlight lamps of an evening. They have their language lessons early in themorning and you must have noticed how gleefully they learn them. Ofcourse we must not forget that they do not have to learn the Englishlanguage!

The health of this medical-student tutor of ours was so good that eventhe fervent and united wishes of his three pupils were not enough tocause his absence even for a day. Only once was he laid up with a brokenhead when, on the occasion of a fight between the Indian and Eurasianstudents of the Medical College, a chair was thrown at him. It was aregrettable occurrence; nevertheless we were not able to take it as apersonal sorrow, and his recovery somehow seemed to us needlessly swift. 

It is evening. The rain is pouring in lance-like showers. Our lane isunder knee-deep water. The tank has overflown into the garden, and thebushy tops of the Bael trees are seen standing out over the waters. Ourwhole being, on this delightful rainy evening, is radiating rapture likethe _Kadamba_ flower its fragrant spikes. The time for the arrival ofour tutor is over by just a few minutes. Yet there is no certainty... !We are sitting on the verandah overlooking the lane[12] watching andwatching with a piteous gaze. All of a sudden, with a great big thump, our hearts seem to fall in a swoon. The familiar black umbrella hasturned the corner undefeated even by such weather! Could it not besomebody else? It certainly could not! In the wide wide world theremight be found another, his equal in pertinacity, but never in thislittle lane of ours. 

Looking back on his period as a whole, I cannot say that Aghore Babu wasa hard man. He did not rule us with a rod. Even his rebukes did notamount to scoldings. But whatever may have been his personal merits, histime was _evening_, and his subject _English_! I am certain that even anangel would have seemed a veritable messenger of Yama[13] to any Bengaliboy if he came to him at the end of his miserable day at school, andlighted a dismally dim lamp to teach him English. 

How well do I remember the day our tutor tried to impress on us theattractiveness of the English language. With this object he recited tous with great unction some lines--prose or poetry we could not tell--outof an English book. It had a most unlooked for effect on us. We laughedso immoderately that he had to dismiss us for that evening. He musthave realised that he held no easy brief--that to get us to pronounce inhis favour would entail a contest ranging over years. 

Aghore Babu would sometimes try to bring the zephyr of outside knowledgeto play on the arid routine of our schoolroom. One day he brought apaper parcel out of his pocket and said: "I'll show you to-day awonderful piece of work of the Creator. " With this he untied the paperwrapping and, producing a portion of the vocal organs of a human being, proceeded to expound the marvels of its mechanism. 

I can still call to mind the shock this gave me at the time. I hadalways thought the whole man spoke--had never even imagined that the actof speech could be viewed in this detached way. However wonderful themechanism of a part may be, it is certainly less so than the whole man. Not that I put it to myself in so many words, but that was the cause ofmy dismay. It was perhaps because the tutor had lost sight of this truththat the pupil could not respond to the enthusiasm with which he wasdiscoursing on the subject. 

Another day he took us to the dissecting room of the Medical College. The body of an old woman was stretched on the table. This did notdisturb me so much. But an amputated leg which was lying on the floorupset me altogether. To view man in this fragmentary way seemed to me sohorrid, so absurd that I could not get rid of the impression of thatdark, unmeaning leg for many a day. 

After getting through Peary Sarkar's first and second English readers weentered upon McCulloch's Course of Reading. Our bodies were weary at theend of the day, our minds yearning for the inner apartments, the bookwas black and thick with difficult words, and the subject-matter couldhardly have been more inviting, for in those days, MotherSaraswati's[14] maternal tenderness was not in evidence. Children'sbooks were not full of pictures then as they are now. Moreover, at thegateway of every reading lesson stood sentinel an array of words, withseparated syllables, and forbidding accent marks like fixed bayonets, barring the way to the infant mind. I had repeatedly attacked theirserried ranks in vain. 

Our tutor would try to shame us by recounting the exploits of some otherbrilliant pupil of his. We felt duly ashamed, and also not well-disposedtowards that other pupil, but this did not help to dispel the darknesswhich clung to that black volume. 

Providence, out of pity for mankind, has instilled a soporific charminto all tedious things. No sooner did our English lessons begin thanour heads began to nod. Sprinkling water into our eyes, or taking a runround the verandahs, were palliatives which had no lasting effect. If byany chance my eldest brother happened to be passing that way, and caughta glimpse of our sleep-tormented condition, we would get let off for therest of the evening. It did not take our drowsiness another moment toget completely cured. 

(8) _My First Outing_

Once, when the dengue fever was raging in Calcutta, some portion of ourextensive family had to take shelter in Chhatu Babu's river-side villa. We were among them. 

This was my first outing. The bank of the Ganges welcomed me into itslap like a friend of a former birth. There, in front of the servants'quarters, was a grove of guava trees; and, sitting in the verandah underthe shade of these, gazing at the flowing current through the gapsbetween their trunks, my days would pass. Every morning, as I awoke, Isomehow felt the day coming to me like a new gilt-edged letter, withsome unheard-of news awaiting me on the opening of the envelope. And, lest I should lose any fragment of it, I would hurry through my toiletto my chair outside. Every day there was the ebb and flow of the tide onthe Ganges; the various gait of so many different boats; the shifting ofthe shadows of the trees from west to east; and, over the fringe ofshade-patches of the woods on the opposite bank, the gush of goldenlife-blood through the pierced breast of the evening sky. Some dayswould be cloudy from early morning; the opposite woods black; blackshadows moving over the river. Then with a rush would come thevociferous rain, blotting out the horizon; the dim line of the otherbank taking its leave in tears: the river swelling with suppressedheavings; and the moist wind making free with the foliage of the treesoverhead. 

I felt that out of the bowels of wall, beam and rafter, I had a newbirth into the outside. In making fresh acquaintance with things, thedingy covering of petty habits seemed to drop off the world. I am surethat the sugar-cane molasses, which I had with cold _luchis_ for mybreakfast, could not have tasted different from the ambrosia which_Indra_[15] quaffs in his heaven; for, the immortality is not in thenectar but in the taster, and thus is missed by those who seek it. 

Behind the house was a walled-in enclosure with a tank and a flight ofsteps leading into the water from a bathing platform. On one side of theplatform was an immense Jambolan tree, and all round were various fruittrees, growing in thick clusters, in the shade of which the tank nestledin its privacy. The veiled beauty of this retired little inner gardenhad a wonderful charm for me, so different from the broad expanse of theriver-bank in front. It was like the bride of the house, in theseclusion of her midday siesta, resting on a many-coloured quilt of herown embroidering, murmuring low the secrets of her heart. Many a middayhour did I spend alone under that Jambolan tree dreaming of the fearsomekingdom of the Yakshas[16] within the depths of the tank. 

I had a great curiosity to see a Bengal village. Its clusters ofcottages, its thatched pavilions, its lanes and bathing places, itsgames and gatherings, its fields and markets, its life as a whole as Isaw it in imagination, greatly attracted me. Just such a village wasright on the other side of our garden wall, but it was forbidden to us. We had come out, but not into freedom. We had been in a cage, and werenow on a perch, but the chain was still there. 

One morning two of our elders went out for a stroll into the village. Icould not restrain my eagerness any longer, and, slipping outunperceived, followed them for some distance. As I went along the deeplyshaded lane, with its close thorny _seora_ hedges, by the side of thetank covered with green water weeds, I rapturously took in picture afterpicture. I still remember the man with bare body, engaged in a belatedtoilet on the edge of the tank, cleaning his teeth with the chewed endof a twig. Suddenly my elders became aware of my presence behind them. "Get away, get away, go back at once!" they scolded. They werescandalised. My feet were bare, I had no scarf or upper-robe over mytunic, I was not dressed fit to come out; as if it was my fault! I neverowned any socks or superfluous apparel, so not only went backdisappointed for that morning, but had no chance of repairing myshortcomings and being allowed to come out any other day. However thoughthe Beyond was thus shut out from behind, in front the Ganges freed mefrom all bondage, and my mind, whenever it listed, could embark on theboats gaily sailing along, and hie away to lands not named in anygeography. 

This was forty years ago. Since then I have never set foot again in that_champak_-shaded villa garden. The same old house and the same oldtrees must still be there, but I know it cannot any longer be thesame--for where am I now to get that fresh feeling of wonder which madeit what it was?

We returned to our Jorasanko house in town. And my days were as so manymouthfuls offered up to be gulped down into the yawning interior of theNormal School. 

(9) _Practising Poetry_

That blue manuscript book was soon filled, like the hive of some insect, with a network of variously slanting lines and the thick and thinstrokes of letters. The eager pressure of the boy writer soon crumpledits leaves; and then the edges got frayed, and twisted up claw-like asif to hold fast the writing within, till at last, down what river_Baitarani_[17] I know not, its pages were swept away by mercifuloblivion. Anyhow they escaped the pangs of a passage through theprinting press and need fear no birth into this vale of woe. 

I cannot claim to have been a passive witness of the spread of myreputation as a poet. Though Satkari Babu was not a teacher of our classhe was very fond of me. He had written a book on NaturalHistory--wherein I hope no unkind humorist will try to find a reason forsuch fondness. He sent for me one day and asked: "So you write poetry, do you?" I did not conceal the fact. From that time on, he would now andthen ask me to complete a quatrain by adding a couplet of my own to onegiven by him. 

Gobinda Babu of our school was very dark, and short and fat. He was theSuperintendent. He sat, in his black suit, with his account books, in anoffice room on the second storey. We were all afraid of him, for he wasthe rod-bearing judge. On one occasion I had escaped from the attentionsof some bullies into his room. The persecutors were five or six olderboys. I had no one to bear witness on my side--except my tears. I won mycase and since then Govinda Babu had a soft corner in his heart for me. 

One day he called me into his room during the recess. I went in fear andtrembling but had no sooner stepped before him than he also accosted mewith the question: "So you write poetry?" I did not hesitate to make theadmission. He commissioned me to write a poem on some high moral preceptwhich I do not remember. The amount of condescension and affabilitywhich such a request coming from him implied can only be appreciated bythose who were his pupils. When I finished and handed him the versesnext day, he took me to the highest class and made me stand before theboys. "Recite, " he commanded. And I recited loudly. 

The only praiseworthy thing about this moral poem was that it soon gotlost. Its moral effect on that class was far from encouraging--thesentiment it aroused being not one of regard for its author. Most ofthem were certain that it was not my own composition. One said he couldproduce the book from which it was copied, but was not pressed to do so;the process of proving is such a nuisance to those who want to believe. Finally the number of seekers after poetic fame began to increasealarmingly; moreover their methods were not those which are recognisedas roads to moral improvement. 

Nowadays there is nothing strange in a youngster writing verses. Theglamour of poesy is gone. I remember how the few women who wrote poetryin those days were looked upon as miraculous creations of the Deity. Ifone hears to-day that some young lady does not write poems one feelssceptical. Poetry now sprouts long before the highest Bengali class isreached; so that no modern Gobinda Babu would have taken any notice ofthe poetic exploit I have recounted. 

PART III

(10) _Srikantha Babu_

At this time I was blessed with a hearer the like of whom I shall neverget again. He had so inordinate a capacity for being pleased as to haveutterly disqualified him for the post of critic in any of our monthlyReviews. The old man was like a perfectly ripe Alfonso mango--not atrace of acid or coarse fibre in his composition. His tenderclean-shaven face was rounded off by an all-pervading baldness; therewas not the vestige of a tooth to worry the inside of his mouth; and hisbig smiling eyes gleamed with a constant delight. When he spoke in hissoft deep voice, his mouth and eyes and hands all spoke likewise. He wasof the old school of Persian culture and knew not a word of English. Hisinseparable companions were a hubble-bubble at his left, and a _sitar_on his lap; and from his throat flowed song unceasing. 

Srikantha Babu had no need to wait for a formal introduction, for nonecould resist the natural claims of his genial heart. Once he took us tobe photographed with him in some big English photographic studio. Therehe so captivated the proprietor with his artless story, in a jumble ofHindusthani and Bengali, of how he was a poor man, but badly wantedthis particular photograph taken, that the man smilingly allowed him areduced rate. Nor did such bargaining sound at all incongruous in thatunbending English establishment, so naïve was Srikantha Babu, sounconscious of any possibility of giving offence. He would sometimestake me along to a European missionary's house. There, also, with hisplaying and singing, his caresses of the missionary's little girl andhis unstinted admiration of the little booted feet of the missionary'slady, he would enliven the gathering as no one else could have done. Another behaving so absurdly would have been deemed a bore, but histransparent simplicity pleased all and drew them to join in his gaiety. 

Srikantha Babu was impervious to rudeness or insolence. There was at thetime a singer of some repute retained in our establishment. When thelatter was the worse for liquor he would rail at poor Srikantha Babu'ssinging in no very choice terms. This he would bear unflinchingly, withno attempt at retort. When at last the man's incorrigible rudenessbrought about his dismissal Srikantha Babu anxiously interceded for him. "It was not he, it was the liquor, " he insisted. 

[Illustration: The Ganges]

He could not bear to see anyone sorrowing or even to hear of it. So whenany one of the boys wanted to torment him they had only to read outpassages from Vidyasagar's "Banishment of Sita"; whereat he would begreatly exercised, thrusting out his hands in protest and begging andpraying of them to stop. 

This old man was the friend alike of my father, my elder brothers andourselves. He was of an age with each and every one of us. As any pieceof stone is good enough for the freshet to dance round and gambol with, so the least provocation would suffice to make him beside himself withjoy. Once I had composed a hymn, and had not failed to make due allusionto the trials and tribulations of this world. Srikantha Babu wasconvinced that my father would be overjoyed at such a perfect gem of adevotional poem. With unbounded enthusiasm he volunteered personally toacquaint him with it. By a piece of good fortune I was not there at thetime but heard afterwards that my father was hugely amused that thesorrows of the world should have so early moved his youngest son to thepoint of versification. I am sure Gobinda Babu, the superintendent, would have shown more respect for my effort on so serious a subject. 

In singing I was Srikantha Babu's favorite pupil. He had taught me asong: "No more of Vraja[18] for me, " and would drag me about toeveryone's rooms and get me to sing it to them. I would sing and hewould thrum an accompaniment on his _sitar_ and when we came to thechorus he would join in, and repeat it over and over again, smiling andnodding his head at each one in turn, as if nudging them on to a moreenthusiastic appreciation. 

He was a devoted admirer of my father. A hymn had been set to one of histunes, "For He is the heart of our hearts. " When he sang this to myfather Srikantha Babu got so excited that he jumped up from his seat andin alternation violently twanged his _sitar_ as he sang: "For He is theheart of our hearts" and then waved his hand about my father's face ashe changed the words to "For _you_ are the heart of our hearts. "

When the old man paid his last visit to my father, the latter, himselfbed-ridden, was at a river-side villa in Chinsurah. Srikantha Babu, stricken with his last illness, could not rise unaided and had to pushopen his eyelids to see. In this state, tended by his daughter, hejourneyed to Chinsurah from his place in Birbhoom. With a great efforthe managed to take the dust of my father's feet and then return to hislodgings in Chinsurah where he breathed his last a few days later. Iheard afterwards from his daughter that he went to his eternal youthwith the song "How sweet is thy mercy, Lord!" on his lips. 

(11) _Our Bengali Course Ends_

At School we were then in the class below the highest one. At home wehad advanced in Bengali much further than the subjects taught in theclass. We had been through Akshay Datta's book on Popular Physics, andhad also finished the epic of Meghnadvadha. We read our physics withoutany reference to physical objects and so our knowledge of the subjectwas correspondingly bookish. In fact the time spent on it had beenthoroughly wasted; much more so to my mind than if it had been wasted indoing nothing. The Meghnadvadha, also, was not a thing of joy to us. Thetastiest tit-bit may not be relished when thrown at one's head. Toemploy an epic to teach language is like using a sword to shavewith--sad for the sword, bad for the chin. A poem should be taught fromthe emotional standpoint; inveigling it into service asgrammar-cum-dictionary is not calculated to propitiate the divineSaraswati. 

All of a sudden our Normal School career came to an end; and therebyhangs a tale. One of our school teachers wanted to borrow a copy of mygrandfather's life by Mitra from our library. My nephew and classmateSatya managed to screw up courage enough to volunteer to mention this tomy father. He came to the conclusion that everyday Bengali would hardlydo to approach him with. So he concocted and delivered himself of anarchaic phrase with such meticulous precision that my father must havefelt our study of the Bengali language had gone a bit too far and was indanger of over-reaching itself. So the next morning, when according toour wont our table had been placed in the south verandah, the blackboardhung up on a nail in the wall, and everything was in readiness for ourlessons with Nilkamal Babu, we three were sent for by my father to hisroom upstairs. "You need not do any more Bengali lessons, " he said. Ourminds danced for very joy. 

Nilkamal Babu was waiting downstairs, our books were lying open on thetable, and the idea of getting us once more to go through theMeghnadvadha doubtless still occupied his mind. But as on one'sdeath-bed the various routine of daily life seems unreal, so, in amoment, did everything, from the Pandit down to the nail on which theblackboard was hung, become for us as empty as a mirage. Our soletrouble was how to give this news to Nilkamal Babu with due decorum. Wedid it at last with considerable restraint, while the geometricalfigures on the blackboard stared at us in wonder and the blank verse ofthe Meghnadvadha looked blankly on. 

Our Pandit's parting words were: "At the call of duty I may have beensometimes harsh with you--do not keep that in remembrance. You willlearn the value of what I have taught you later on. "

Indeed I have learnt that value. It was because we were taught in ourown language that our minds quickened. Learning should as far aspossible follow the process of eating. When the taste begins from thefirst bite, the stomach is awakened to its function before it is loaded, so that its digestive juices get full play. Nothing like this happens, however, when the Bengali boy is taught in English. The first bite bidsfair to wrench loose both rows of teeth--like a veritable earthquake inthe mouth! And by the time he discovers that the morsel is not of thegenus stone, but a digestible bonbon, half his allotted span of life isover. While one is choking and spluttering over the spelling andgrammar, the inside remains starved, and when at length the taste isfelt, the appetite has vanished. If the whole mind does not work fromthe beginning its full powers remain undeveloped to the end. While allaround was the cry for English teaching, my third brother was braveenough to keep us to our Bengali course. To him in heaven my gratefulreverence. 

(12) _The Professor_

On leaving the Normal School we were sent to the Bengal Academy, aEurasian institution. We felt we had gained an access of dignity, thatwe had grown up--at least into the first storey of freedom. In point offact the only progress we made in that academy was towards freedom. Whatwe were taught there we never understood, nor did we make any attempt tolearn, nor did it seem to make any difference to anybody that we didnot. The boys here were annoying but not disgusting--which was a greatcomfort. They wrote ASS on their palms and slapped it on to our backswith a cordial "hello!" They gave us a dig in the ribs from behind andlooked innocently another way. They dabbed banana pulp on our heads andmade away unperceived. Nevertheless it was like coming out of slime onto rock--we were worried but not soiled. 

This school had one great advantage for me. No one there cherished theforlorn hope that boys of our sort could make any advance in learning. It was a petty institution with an insufficient income, so that we hadone supreme merit in the eyes of its authorities--we paid our feesregularly. This prevented even the Latin Grammar from proving astumbling block, and the most egregious of blunders left our backsunscathed. Pity for us had nothing to do with it--the school authoritieshad spoken to the teachers!

Still, harmless though it was, after all it was a school. The rooms werecruelly dismal with their walls on guard like policemen. The house wasmore like a pigeon-holed box than a human habitation. No decoration, nopictures, not a touch of colour, not an attempt to attract the boyishheart. The fact that likes and dislikes form a large part of the childmind was completely ignored. Naturally our whole being was depressed aswe stepped through its doorway into the narrow quadrangle--and playingtruant became chronic with us. 

In this we found an accomplice. My elder brothers had a Persian tutor. We used to call him Munshi. He was of middle age and all skin and bone, as though dark parchment had been stretched over his skeleton withoutany filling of flesh and blood. He probably knew Persian well, hisknowledge of English was quite fair, but in neither of these directionslay his ambition. His belief was that his proficiency in singlestickwas matched only by his skill in song. He would stand in the sun in themiddle of our courtyard and go through a wonderful series of antics witha staff--his own shadow being his antagonist. I need hardly add that hisshadow never got the better of him and when at the end he gave a greatbig shout and whacked it on the head with a victorious smile, it laysubmissively prone at his feet. His singing, nasal and out of tune, sounded like a gruesome mixture of groaning and moaning coming from someghost-world. Our singing master Vishnu would sometimes chaff him: "Lookhere, Munshi, you'll be taking the bread out of our mouths at thisrate!" To which his only reply would be a disdainful smile. 

This shows that the Munshi was amenable to soft words; and in fact, whenever we wanted we could persuade him to write to the schoolauthorities to excuse us from attendance. The school authorities took nopains to scrutinise these letters, they knew it would be all the samewhether we attended or not, so far as educational results wereconcerned. 

I have now a school of my own in which the boys are up to all kinds ofmischief, for boys will be mischievous--and schoolmasters unforgiving. When any of us are beset with undue uneasiness at their conduct and arestirred into a resolution to deal out condign punishment, the misdeedsof my own schooldays confront me in a row and smile at me. 

I now clearly see that the mistake is to judge boys by the standard ofgrown-ups, to forget that a child is quick and mobile like a runningstream; and that, in the case of such, any touch of imperfection needcause no great alarm, for the speed of the flow is itself the bestcorrective. When stagnation sets in then comes the danger. So it is forthe teacher, more than the pupil, to beware of wrongdoing. 

There was a separate refreshment room for Bengali boys for meeting theircaste requirements. This was where we struck up a friendship with someof the others. They were all older than we. One of these will bear to bedilated upon. 

His specialty was the art of Magic, so much so that he had actuallywritten and published a little booklet on it, the front page of whichbore his name with the title of Professor. I had never before comeacross a schoolboy whose name had appeared in print, so that myreverence for him--as a professor of magic I mean--was profound. Howcould I have brought myself to believe that anything questionable couldpossibly find place in the straight and upright ranks of printedletters? To be able to record one's own words in indelible ink--wasthat a slight thing? To stand unscreened yet unabashed, self-confessedbefore the world, --how could one withhold belief in the face of suchsupreme self-confidence? I remember how once I got the types for theletters of my name from some printing press, and what a memorable thingit seemed when I inked and pressed them on paper and found my nameimprinted. 

We used to give a lift in our carriage to this schoolfellow andauthor-friend of ours. This led to visiting terms. He was also great attheatricals. With his help we erected a stage on our wrestling groundwith painted paper stretched over a split bamboo framework. But aperemptory negative from upstairs prevented any play from being actedthereon. 

A comedy of errors was however played later on without any stage at all. The author of this has already been introduced to the reader in thesepages. He was none other than my nephew Satya. Those who behold hispresent calm and sedate demeanour would be shocked to learn of thetricks of which he was the originator. 

[Illustration: Satya]

The event of which I am writing happened sometime afterwards when I wastwelve or thirteen. Our magician friend had told of so many strangeproperties of things that I was consumed with curiosity to see them formyself. But the materials of which he spoke were invariably so rareor distant that one could hardly hope to get hold of them without thehelp of Sindbad the sailor. Once, as it happened, the Professor forgothimself so far as to mention accessible things. Who could ever believethat a seed dipped and dried twenty-one times in the juice of a speciesof cactus would sprout and flower and fruit all in the space of an hour?I was determined to test this, not daring withal to doubt the assuranceof a Professor whose name appeared in a printed book. 

I got our gardener to furnish me with a plentiful supply of the milkyjuice, and betook myself, on a Sunday afternoon, to our mystic nook in acorner of the roof terrace, to experiment with the stone of a mango. Iwas wrapt in my task of dipping and drying--but the grown-up reader willprobably not wait to ask me the result. In the meantime, I little knewthat Satya, in another corner, had, in the space of an hour, caused toroot and sprout a mystical plant of his own creation. This was to bearcurious fruit later on. 

After the day of this experiment the Professor rather avoided me, as Igradually came to perceive. He would not sit on the same side in thecarriage, and altogether seemed to fight shy of me. 

One day, all of a sudden, he proposed that each one in turn should jumpoff the bench in our schoolroom. He wanted to observe the differencesin style, he said. Such scientific curiosity did not appear queer in aprofessor of magic. Everyone jumped, so did I. He shook his head with asubdued "h'm. " No amount of persuasion could draw anything further outof him. 

Another day he informed us that some good friends of his wanted to makeour acquaintance and asked us to accompany him to their house. Ourguardians had no objection, so off we went. The crowd in the room seemedfull of curiosity. They expressed their eagerness to hear me sing. Isang a song or two. Mere child as I was I could hardly have bellowedlike a bull. "Quite a sweet voice, " they all agreed. 

When refreshments were put before us they sat round and watched us eat. I was bashful by nature and not used to strange company; moreover thehabit I acquired during the attendance of our servant Iswar left me apoor eater for good. They all seemed impressed with the delicacy of myappetite. 

In the fifth act I got some curiously warm letters from our Professorwhich revealed the whole situation. And here let the curtain fall. 

I subsequently learnt from Satya that while I had been practising magicon the mango seed, he had successfully convinced the Professor that Iwas dressed as a boy by our guardians merely for getting me a betterschooling, but that really this was only a disguise. To those who arecurious in regard to imaginary science I should explain that a girl issupposed to jump with her left foot forward, and this is what I had doneon the occasion of the Professor's trial. I little realised at the timewhat a tremendously false step mine had been!

(13) _My Father_

Shortly after my birth my father took to constantly travelling about. Soit is no exaggeration to say that in my early childhood I hardly knewhim. He would now and then come back home all of a sudden, and with himcame foreign servants with whom I felt extremely eager to make friends. Once there came in this way a young Panjabi servant named Lenu. Thecordiality of the reception he got from us would have been worthy ofRanjit Singh himself. Not only was he a foreigner, but a Panjabi toboot, --what wonder he stole our hearts away?

We had the same reverence for the whole Panjabi nation as for Bhima andArjuna of the Mahabharata. They were warriors; and if they hadsometimes fought and lost, that was clearly the enemy's fault. It wasglorious to have Lenu, of the Panjab, in our very home. 

My sister-in-law had a model war-ship under a glass case, which, whenwound up, rocked on blue-painted silken waves to the tinkling of amusical box. I would beg hard for the loan of this to display itsmarvels to the admiring Lenu. 

Caged in the house as we were, anything savouring of foreign parts had apeculiar charm for me. This was one of the reasons why I made so much ofLenu. This was also the reason why Gabriel, the Jew, with hisembroidered gaberdine, who came to sell _attars_ and scented oils, stirred me so; and the huge Kabulis, with their dusty, baggy trousersand knapsacks and bundles, wrought on my young mind a fearfulfascination. 

Anyhow, when my father came, we would be content with wandering roundabout his entourage and in the company of his servants. We did not reachhis immediate presence. 

Once while my father was away in the Himalayas, that old bogey of theBritish Government, the Russian invasion, came to be a subject ofagitated conversation among the people. Some well-meaning lady friendhad enlarged on the impending danger to my mother with all thecircumstance of a prolific imagination. How could a body tell fromwhich of the Tibetan passes the Russian host might suddenly flash forthlike a baleful comet?

My mother was seriously alarmed. Possibly the other members of thefamily did not share her misgivings; so, despairing of grown-upsympathy, she sought my boyish support. "Won't you write to your fatherabout the Russians?" she asked. 

That letter, carrying the tidings of my mother's anxieties, was my firstone to my father. I did not know how to begin or end a letter, oranything at all about it. I went to Mahananda, the estate munshi. [19]The resulting style of address was doubtless correct enough, but thesentiments could not have escaped the musty flavour inseparable fromliterature emanating from an estate office. 

I got a reply to my letter. My father asked me not to be afraid; if theRussians came he would drive them away himself. This confident assurancedid not seem to have the effect of relieving my mother's fears, but itserved to free me from all timidity as regards my father. After that Iwanted to write to him every day and pestered Mahananda accordingly. Unable to withstand my importunity he would make out drafts for me tocopy. But I did not know that there was the postage to be paid for. Ihad an idea that letters placed in Mahananda's hands got to theirdestination without any need for further worry. It is hardly necessaryto mention that, Mahananda being considerably older than myself, theseletters never reached the Himalayan hill-tops. 

When, after his long absences, my father came home even for a few days, the whole house seemed filled with the weight of his presence. We wouldsee our elders at certain hours, formally robed in their _chogas_, passing to his rooms with restrained gait and sobered mien, casting awayany _pan_[20] they might have been chewing. Everyone seemed on thealert. To make sure of nothing going wrong, my mother would superintendthe cooking herself. The old mace-bearer, Kinu, with his white liveryand crested turban, on guard at my father's door, would warn us not tobe boisterous in the verandah in front of his rooms during his middaysiesta. We had to walk past quietly, talking in whispers, and dared noteven take a peep inside. 

On one occasion my father came home to invest the three of us with thesacred thread. With the help of Pandit Vedantavagish he had collectedthe old Vedic rites for the purpose. For days together we were taught tochant in correct accents the selections from the Upanishads, arranged bymy father under the name of "Brahma Dharma, " seated in the prayer hallwith Becharam Babu. Finally, with shaven heads and gold rings in ourears, we three budding Brahmins went into a three-days' retreat in aportion of the third storey. 

It was great fun. The earrings gave us a good handle to pull eachother's ears with. We found a little drum lying in one of the rooms;taking this we would stand out in the verandah, and, when we caughtsight of any servant passing alone in the storey below, we would rap atattoo on it. This would make the man look up, only to beat a hastyretreat the next moment with averted eyes. [21] In short we cannot claimthat these days of our retirement were passed in ascetic meditation. 

I am however persuaded that boys like ourselves could not have been rarein the hermitages of old. And if some ancient document has it that theten or twelve-year old Saradwata or Sarngarava[22] is spending the wholeof the days of his boyhood offering oblations and chanting _mantras_, weare not compelled to put unquestioning faith in the statement; becausethe book of Boy Nature is even older and also more authentic. 

After we had attained full brahminhood I became very keen on repeatingthe _gayatri_. [23] I would meditate on it with great concentration. Itis hardly a text the full meaning of which I could have grasped at thatage. I well remember what efforts I made to extend the range of myconsciousness with the help of the initial invocation of "Earth, firmament and heaven. " How I felt or thought it is difficult to expressclearly, but this much is certain that to be clear about the meaning ofwords is not the most important function of the human understanding. 

The main object of teaching is not to explain meanings, but to knock atthe door of the mind. If any boy is asked to give an account of what isawakened in him at such knocking, he will probably say something verysilly. For what happens within is much bigger than what he can expressin words. Those who pin their faith on University examinations as a testof all educational results take no account of this fact. 

I can recollect many things which I did not understand, but whichstirred me deeply. Once, on the roof terrace of our river-side villa, myeldest brother, at the sudden gathering of clouds, repeated aloud somestanzas from Kalidas's "Cloud Messenger. " I could not, nor had I theneed to, understand a word of the Sanskrit. His ecstatic declamation ofthe sonorous rhythm was enough for me. 

Then, again, before I could properly understand English, a profuselyillustrated edition of "The Old Curiosity Shop" fell into my hands. Iwent through the whole of it, though at least nine-tenths of the wordswere unknown to me. Yet, with the vague ideas I conjured up from therest, I spun out a variously coloured thread on which to string theillustrations. Any university examiner would have given me a great bigzero, but the reading of the book had not proved for me quite so emptyas all that. 

Another time I had accompanied my father on a trip on the Ganges in hishouseboat. Among the books he had with him was an old Fort Williamedition of Jayadeva's _Gita Govinda_. It was in the Bengali character. The verses were not printed in separate lines, but ran on like prose. Idid not then know anything of Sanskrit, yet because of my knowledge ofBengali many of the words were familiar. I cannot tell how often I readthat _Gita Govinda_. I can well remember this line:

 The night that was passed in the lonely forest cottage. 

It spread an atmosphere of vague beauty over my mind. That one Sanskritword, Nibhrita-nikunja-griham, meaning "the lonely forest cottage" wasquite enough for me. 

I had to discover for myself the intricate metre of Jayadeva, becauseits divisions were lost in the clumsy prose form of the book. And thisdiscovery gave me very great delight. Of course I did not fullycomprehend Jayadeva's meaning. It would hardly be correct to aver that Ihad got it even partly. But the sound of the words and the lilt of themetre filled my mind with pictures of wonderful beauty, which impelledme to copy out the whole of the book for my own use. 

The same thing happened, when I was a little older, with a verse fromKalidas's "Birth of the War God. " The verse moved me greatly, though theonly words of which I gathered the sense, were "the breeze carrying thespray-mist of the falling waters of the sacred Mandakini and shaking thedeodar leaves. " These left me pining to taste the beauties of the whole. When, later, a Pandit explained to me that in the next two lines thebreeze went on "splitting the feathers of the peacock plume on the headof the eager deer-hunter, " the thinness of this last conceitdisappointed me. I was much better off when I had relied only upon myimagination to complete the verse. 

Whoever goes back to his early childhood will agree that his greatestgains were not in proportion to the completeness of his understanding. Our Kathakas[24] I know this truth well. So their narratives always havea good proportion of ear-filling Sanskrit words and abstruse remarks notcalculated to be fully understood by their simple hearers, but only tobe suggestive. 

The value of such suggestion is by no means to be despised by those whomeasure education in terms of material gains and losses. These insist ontrying to sum up the account and find out exactly how much of the lessonimparted can be rendered up. But children, and those who are notover-educated, dwell in that primal paradise where men can come to knowwithout fully comprehending each step. And only when that paradise islost comes the evil day when everything needs must be understood. Theroad which leads to knowledge, without going through the dreary processof understanding, that is the royal road. If that be barred, though theworld's marketing may yet go on as usual, the open sea and the mountaintop cease to be possible of access. 

So, as I was saying, though at that age I could not realise the fullmeaning of the _Gayatri_, there was something in me which could dowithout a complete understanding. I am reminded of a day when, as I wasseated on the cement floor in a corner of our schoolroom meditating onthe text, my eyes overflowed with tears. Why those tears came I knewnot; and to a strict cross-questioner I would probably have given someexplanation having nothing to do with the _Gayatri_. The fact of thematter is that what is going on in the inner recesses of consciousnessis not always known to the dweller on the surface. 

(14) _A journey with my Father_

My shaven head after the sacred thread ceremony caused me one greatanxiety. However partial Eurasian lads may be to things appertaining tothe Cow, their reverence for the Brahmin[25] is notoriously lacking. Sothat, apart from other missiles, our shaven heads were sure to be peltedwith jeers. While I was worrying over this possibility I was one daysummoned upstairs to my father. How would I like to go with him to theHimalayas, I was asked. Away from the Bengal Academy and off to theHimalayas! Would I like it? O that I could have rent the skies with ashout, that might have given some idea of the How!

On the day of our leaving home my father, as was his habit, assembledthe whole family in the prayer hall for divine service. After I hadtaken the dust of the feet of my elders I got into the carriage with myfather. This was the first time in my life that I had a full suit ofclothes made for me. My father himself had selected the pattern andcolour. A gold embroidered velvet cap completed my costume. This Icarried in my hand, being assailed with misgivings as to its effect injuxtaposition to my hairless head. As I got into the carriage my fatherinsisted on my wearing it, so I had to put it on. Every time he lookedanother way I took it off. Every time I caught his eye it had to resumeits proper place. 

My father was very particular in all his arrangements and orderings. Hedisliked leaving things vague or undetermined and never allowedslovenliness or makeshifts. He had a well-defined code to regulate hisrelations with others and theirs with him. In this he was different fromthe generality of his countrymen. With the rest of us a littlecarelessness this way or that did not signify; so in our dealings withhim we had to be anxiously careful. It was not so much the little lessor more that he objected to as the failure to be up to the standard. 

My father had also a way of picturing to himself every detail of what hewanted done. On the occasion of any ceremonial gathering, at which hecould not be present, he would think out and assign the place for eachthing, the duty for each member of the family, the seat for each guest;nothing would escape him. After it was all over he would ask each onefor a separate account and thus gain a complete impression of the wholefor himself. So, while I was with him on his travels, though nothingwould induce him to put obstacles in the way of my amusing myself as Ipleased, he left no loophole in the strict rules of conduct which heprescribed for me in other respects. 

Our first halt was to be for a few days at Bolpur. Satya had been therea short time before with his parents. No self-respecting nineteenthcentury infant would have credited the account of his travels which hegave us on his return. But we were different, and had had no opportunityof learning to determine the line between the possible and theimpossible. Our Mahabharata and Ramayana gave us no clue to it. Nor hadwe then any children's illustrated books to guide us in the way a childshould go. All the hard and fast laws which govern the world we learntby knocking up against them. 

Satya had told us that, unless one was very very expert, getting into arailway carriage was a terribly dangerous affair--the least slip, andit was all up. Then, again, a fellow had to hold on to his seat with allhis might, otherwise the jolt at starting was so tremendous there was notelling where one would get thrown off to. So when we got to the railwaystation I was all a-quiver. So easily did we get into our compartment, however, that I felt sure the worst was yet to come. And when, atlength, we made an absurdly smooth start, without any semblance ofadventure, I felt woefully disappointed. 

The train sped on; the broad fields with their blue-green border trees, and the villages nestling in their shade flew past in a stream ofpictures which melted away like a flood of mirages. It was evening whenwe reached Bolpur. As I got into the palanquin I closed my eyes. Iwanted to preserve the whole of the wonderful vision to be unfoldedbefore my waking eyes in the morning light. The freshness of theexperience would be spoilt, I feared, by incomplete glimpses caught inthe vagueness of the dusk. 

When I woke at dawn my heart was thrilling tremulously as I steppedoutside. My predecessor had told me that Bolpur had one feature whichwas to be found nowhere else in the world. This was the path leadingfrom the main buildings to the servants' quarters which, though notcovered over in any way, did not allow a ray of the sun or a drop ofrain to touch anybody passing along it. I started to hunt for thiswonderful path, but the reader will perhaps not wonder at my failure tofind it to this day. 

Town bred as I was, I had never seen a rice-field, and I had a charmingportrait of the cowherd boy, of whom we had read, pictured on the canvasof my imagination. I had heard from Satya that the Bolpur house wassurrounded by fields of ripening rice, and that playing in these withcowherd boys was an everyday affair, of which the plucking, cooking andeating of the rice was the crowning feature. I eagerly looked about me. But where, oh, where was the rice-field on all that barren heath?Cowherd boys there might have been somewhere about, yet how todistinguish them from any other boys, that was the question!

However it did not take me long to get over what I could not see, --whatI did see was quite enough. There was no servant rule here, and the onlyring which encircled me was the blue of the horizon which the presidinggoddess of these solitudes had drawn round them. Within this I was freeto move about as I chose. 

Though I was yet a mere child my father did not place any restriction onmy wanderings. In the hollows of the sandy soil the rainwater hadploughed deep furrows, carving out miniature mountain ranges full of redgravel and pebbles of various shapes through which ran tiny streams, revealing the geography of Lilliput. From this region I would gather inthe lap of my tunic many curious pieces of stone and take the collectionto my father. He never made light of my labours. On the contrary hewaxed enthusiastic. 

"How wonderful!" he exclaimed. "Wherever did you get all these?"

"There are many many more, thousands and thousands!" I burst out. "Icould bring as many every day. "

"That _would_ be nice!" he replied. "Why not decorate my little hillwith them?"

An attempt had been made to dig a tank in the garden, but the subsoilwater proving too low, it had been abandoned, unfinished, with theexcavated earth left piled up into a hillock. On the top of this heightmy father used to sit for his morning prayer, and as he sat the sunwould rise at the edge of the undulating expanse which stretched away tothe eastern horizon in front of him. This was the hill he asked me todecorate. 

I was very troubled, on leaving Bolpur, that I could not carry away withme my store of stones. It is still difficult for me to realise that Ihave no absolute claim to keep up a close relationship with things, merely because I have gathered them together. If my fate had granted methe prayer, which I had pressed with such insistence, and undertakenthat I should carry this load of stones about with me for ever, then Ishould scarcely have had the hardihood to laugh at it to-day. 

In one of the ravines I came upon a hollow full of spring water whichoverflowed as a little rivulet, where sported tiny fish battling theirway up the current. 

"I've found such a lovely spring, " I told my father. "Couldn't we getour bathing and drinking water from there?"

"The very thing, " he agreed, sharing my rapture, and gave orders for ourwater supply to be drawn from that spring. 

I was never tired of roaming about among those miniature hills and dalesin hopes of lighting on something never known before. I was theLivingstone of this undiscovered land which looked as if seen throughthe wrong end of a telescope. Everything there, the dwarf date palms, the scrubby wild plums and the stunted jambolans, was in keeping withthe miniature mountain ranges, the little rivulet and the tiny fish Ihad discovered. 

[Illustration: Singing to My Father]

Probably in order to teach me to be careful my father placed a littlesmall change in my charge and required me to keep an account of it. Healso entrusted me with the duty of winding his valuable gold watch forhim. He overlooked the risk of damage in his desire to train me to asense of responsibility. When we went out together for our morning walkhe would ask me to give alms to any beggars we came across. But I nevercould render him a proper account at the end of it. One day my balancewas larger than the account warranted. 

"I really must make you my cashier, " observed my father. "Money seems tohave a way of growing in your hands!"

That watch of his I wound up with such indefatigable zeal that it hadvery soon to be sent to the watchmaker's in Calcutta. 

I am reminded of the time when, later in life, I was appointed to managethe estate and had to lay before my father, owing to his failingeye-sight, a statement of accounts on the second or third of everymonth. I had first to read out the totals under each head, and if he hadany doubts on any point he would ask for the details. If I made anyattempt to slur over or keep out of sight any item which I feared hewould not like, it was sure to come out. So these first few days of themonth were very anxious ones for me. 

As I have said, my father had the habit of keeping everything clearlybefore his mind, --whether figures of accounts, or ceremonialarrangements, or additions or alterations to property. He had never seenthe new prayer hall built at Bolpur, and yet he was familiar with everydetail of it from questioning those who came to see him after a visit toBolpur. He had an extraordinary memory, and when once he got hold of afact it never escaped him. 

My father had marked his favourite verses in his copy of the_Bhagavadgita_. He asked me to copy these out, with their translation, for him. At home, I had been a boy of no account, but here, when theseimportant functions were entrusted to me, I felt the glory of thesituation. 

By this time I was rid of my blue manuscript book and had got hold of abound volume of one of Lett's diaries. I now saw to it that my poetisingshould not lack any of the dignity of outward circumstance. It was notonly a case of writing poems, but of holding myself forth as a poetbefore my own imagination. So when I wrote poetry at Bolpur I loved todo it sprawling under a young coconut palm. This seemed to me the truepoetic way. Resting thus on the hard unturfed gravel in the burningheat of the day I composed a martial ballad on the "Defeat of KingPrithwi. " In spite of the superabundance of its martial spirit, it couldnot escape an early death. That bound volume of Lett's diary has nowfollowed the way of its elder sister, the blue manuscript book, leavingno address behind. 

We left Bolpur and making short halts on the way at Sahebganj, Dinapore, Allahabad and Cawnpore we stopped at last at Amritsar. 

An incident on the way remains engraved on my memory. The train hadstopped at some big station. The ticket examiner came and punched ourtickets. He looked at me curiously as if he had some doubt which he didnot care to express. He went off and came back with a companion. Both ofthem fidgetted about for a time near the door of our compartment andthen again retired. At last came the station master himself. He lookedat my half-ticket and then asked:

"Is not the boy over twelve?"

"No, " said my father. 

I was then only eleven, but looked older than my age. 

"You must pay the full fare for him, " said the station master. 

My father's eyes flashed as, without a word, he took out a currency notefrom his box and handed it to the station master. When they brought myfather his change he flung it disdainfully back at them, while thestation master stood abashed at this exposure of the meanness of hisimplied doubt. 

The golden temple of Amritsar comes back to me like a dream. Many amorning have I accompanied my father to this _Gurudarbar_ of the Sikhsin the middle of the lake. There the sacred chanting resoundscontinually. My father, seated amidst the throng of worshippers, wouldsometimes add his voice to the hymn of praise, and finding a strangerjoining in their devotions they would wax enthusiastically cordial, andwe would return loaded with the sanctified offerings of sugar crystalsand other sweets. 

One day my father invited one of the chanting choir to our place and gothim to sing us some of their sacred songs. The man went away probablymore than satisfied with the reward he received. The result was that wehad to take stern measures of self-defence, --such an insistent army ofsingers invaded us. When they found our house impregnable, the musiciansbegan to waylay us in the streets. And as we went out for our walk inthe morning, every now and then would appear a _Tambura_, [26] slung overa shoulder, at which we felt like game birds at the sight of the muzzleof the hunter's gun. Indeed, so wary did we become that the twang of the_Tambura_, from a distance, scared us away and utterly failed to bag us. 

When evening fell, my father would sit out in the verandah facing thegarden. I would then be summoned to sing to him. The moon has risen; itsbeams, passing though the trees, have fallen on the verandah floor; I amsinging in the _Behaga_ mode:

O Companion in the darkest passage of life.... 

My father with bowed head and clasped hands is intently listening. I canrecall this evening scene even now. 

I have told of my father's amusement on hearing from Srikantha Babu ofmy maiden attempt at a devotional poem. I am reminded how, later, I hadmy recompense. On the occasion of one of our _Magh_ festivals several ofthe hymns were of my composition. One of them was

"The eye sees thee not, who art the pupil of every eye.... "

My father was then bed-ridden at Chinsurah. He sent for me and mybrother Jyoti. He asked my brother to accompany me on the harmonium andgot me to sing all my hymns one after the other, --some of them I had tosing twice over. When I had finished he said:

"If the king of the country had known the language and could appreciateits literature, he would doubtless have rewarded the poet. Since that isnot so, I suppose I must do it. " With which he handed me a cheque. 

My father had brought with him some volumes of the Peter Parley seriesfrom which to teach me. He selected the life of Benjamin Franklin tobegin with. He thought it would read like a story book and be bothentertaining and instructive. But he found out his mistake soon after webegan it. Benjamin Franklin was much too business-like a person. Thenarrowness of his calculated morality disgusted my father. In some caseshe would get so impatient at the worldly prudence of Franklin that hecould not help using strong words of denunciation. Before this I hadnothing to do with Sanskrit beyond getting some rules of grammar byrote. My father started me on the second Sanskrit reader at one bound, leaving me to learn the declensions as we went on. The advance I hadmade in Bengali[27] stood me in good stead. My father also encouraged meto try Sanskrit composition from the very outset. With the vocabularyacquired from my Sanskrit reader I built up grandiose compound wordswith a profuse sprinkling of sonorous 'm's and 'n's making altogether amost diabolical medley of the language of the gods. But my father neverscoffed at my temerity. 

Then there were the readings from Proctor's Popular Astronomy which myfather explained to me in easy language and which I then rendered intoBengali. 

Among the books which my father had brought for his own use, myattention would be mostly attracted by a ten or twelve volume edition ofGibbon's Rome. They looked remarkably dry. "Being a boy, " I thought, "Iam helpless and read many books because I have to. But why should agrown up person, who need not read unless he pleases, bother himselfso?"

(15) _At the Himalayas_

We stayed about a month in Amritsar, and, towards the middle of April, started for the Dalhousie Hills. The last few days at Amritsar seemed asif they would never pass, the call of the Himalayas was so strong uponme. 

The terraced hill sides, as we went up in a _jhampan_, were all aflamewith the beauty of the flowering spring crops. Every morning we wouldmake a start after our bread and milk, and before sunset take shelterfor the night in the next staging bungalow. My eyes had no rest thelivelong day, so great was my fear lest anything should escape them. Wherever, at a turn of the road into a gorge, the great forest treeswere found clustering closer, and from underneath their shade a littlewaterfall trickling out, like a little daughter of the hermitage playingat the feet of hoary sages wrapt in meditation, babbling its way overthe black moss-covered rocks, there the _jhampan_ bearers would put downtheir burden, and take a rest. Why, oh why, had we to leave such spotsbehind, cried my thirsting heart, why could we not stay on there forever?

This is the great advantage of the first vision: the mind is not thenaware that there are many more such to come. When this comes to be knownto that calculating organ it promptly tries to make a saving in itsexpenditure of attention. It is only when it believes something to berare that the mind ceases to be miserly in assigning values. So in thestreets of Calcutta I sometimes imagine myself a foreigner, and onlythen do I discover how much is to be seen, which is lost so long as itsfull value in attention is not paid. It is the hunger to really seewhich drives people to travel to strange places. 

My father left his little cash-box in my charge. He had no reason toimagine that I was the fittest custodian of the considerable sums hekept in it for use on the way. He would certainly have felt safer withit in the hands of Kishori, his attendant. So I can only suppose hewanted to train me to the responsibility. One day as we reached thestaging bungalow, I forgot to make it over to him and left it lying on atable. This earned me a reprimand. 

Every time we got down at the end of a stage, my father had chairsplaced for us outside the bungalow and there we sat. As dusk came on thestars blazed out wonderfully through the clear mountain atmosphere, andmy father showed me the constellations or treated me to an astronomicaldiscourse. 

The house we had taken at Bakrota was on the highest hill-top. Though itwas nearing May it was still bitterly cold there, so much so that on theshady side of the hill the winter frosts had not yet melted. 

My father was not at all nervous about allowing me to wander aboutfreely even here. Some way below our house there stretched a spurthickly wooded with Deodars. Into this wilderness I would venture alonewith my iron-spiked staff. These lordly forest trees, with their hugeshadows, towering there like so many giants--what immense lives hadthey lived through the centuries! And yet this boy of only the other daywas crawling round about their trunks unchallenged. I seemed to feel apresence, the moment I stepped into their shade, as of the solidcoolness of some old-world saurian, and the checkered light and shade onthe leafy mould seemed like its scales. 

My room was at one end of the house. Lying on my bed I could see, through the uncurtained windows, the distant snowy peaks shimmeringdimly in the starlight. Sometimes, at what hour I could not make out, I, half awakened, would see my father, wrapped in a red shawl, with alighted lamp in his hand, softly passing by to the glazed verandah wherehe sat at his devotions. After one more sleep I would find him at mybedside, rousing me with a push, before yet the darkness of night hadpassed. This was my appointed hour for memorising Sanscrit declensions. What an excruciatingly wintry awakening from the caressing warmth of myblankets!

By the time the sun rose, my father, after his prayers, finished with meour morning milk, and then, I standing at his side, he would once morehold communion with God, chanting the Upanishads. 

Then we would go out for a walk. But how should I keep pace with him?Many an older person could not! So, after a while, I would give it upand scramble back home through some short cut up the mountain side. 

After my father's return I had an hour of English lessons. After teno'clock came the bath in icy-cold water; it was no use asking theservants to temper it with even a jugful of hot water without myfather's permission. To give me courage my father would tell of theunbearably freezing baths he had himself been through in his youngerdays. 

Another penance was the drinking of milk. My father was very fond ofmilk and could take quantities of it. But whether it was a failure toinherit this capacity, or that the unfavourable environment of which Ihave told proved the stronger, my appetite for milk was grievouslywanting. Unfortunately we used to have our milk together. So I had tothrow myself on the mercy of the servants; and to their human kindness(or frailty) I was indebted for my goblet being thenceforth more thanhalf full of foam. 

After our midday meal lessons began again. But this was more than fleshand blood could stand. My outraged morning sleep _would_ have itsrevenge and I would be toppling over with uncontrollable drowsiness. Nevertheless, no sooner did my father take pity on my plight and let meoff, than my sleepiness was off likewise. Then ho! for the mountains. 

Staff in hand I would often wander away from one peak to another, but myfather did not object. To the end of his life, I have observed, he neverstood in the way of our independence. Many a time have I said or donethings repugnant alike to his taste and his judgment; with a word hecould have stopped me; but he preferred to wait till the prompting torefrain came from within. A passive acceptance by us of the correct andthe proper did not satisfy him; he wanted us to love truth with ourwhole hearts; he knew that mere acquiescence without love is empty. Healso knew that truth, if strayed from, can be found again, but a forcedor blind acceptance of it from the outside effectually bars the way in. 

[Illustration: The Himalayas]

In my early youth I had conceived a fancy to journey along the GrandTrunk Road, right up to Peshawar, in a bullock cart. No one elsesupported the scheme, and doubtless there was much to be urged againstit as a practical proposition. But when I discoursed on it to my fatherhe was sure it was a splendid idea--travelling by railroad was not worththe name! With which observation he proceeded to recount to me his ownadventurous wanderings on foot and horseback. Of any chance ofdiscomfort or peril he had not a word to say. 

Another time, when I had just been appointed Secretary of the Adi BrahmaSamaj, I went over to my father, at his Park Street residence, andinformed him that I did not approve of the practice of only Brahminsconducting divine service to the exclusion of other castes. Heunhesitatingly gave me permission to correct this if I could. When I gotthe authority I found I lacked the power. I was able to discoverimperfections but could not create perfection! Where were the men? Wherewas the strength in me to attract the right man? Had I the means tobuild in the place of what I might break? Till the right man comes anyform is better than none--this, I felt, must have been my father's viewof the existing order. But he did not for a moment try to discourage meby pointing out the difficulties. 

As he allowed me to wander about the mountains at my will, so in thequest for truth he left me free to select my path. He was not deterredby the danger of my making mistakes, he was not alarmed at the prospectof my encountering sorrow. He held up a standard, not a disciplinaryrod. 

I would often talk to my father of home. Whenever I got a letter fromanyone at home I hastened to show it to him. I verily believe I wasthus the means of giving him many a picture he could have got from noneelse. My father also let me read letters to him from my elder brothers. This was his way of teaching me how I ought to write to him; for he byno means underrated the importance of outward forms and ceremonial. 

I am reminded of how in one of my second brother's letters he wascomplaining in somewhat sanscritised phraseology of being worked todeath tied by the neck to his post of duty. My father asked me toexplain the sentiment. I did it in my way, but he thought a differentexplanation would fit better. My overweening conceit made me stick to myguns and argue the point with him at length. Another would have shut meup with a snub, but my father patiently heard me out and took pains tojustify his view to me. 

My father would sometimes tell me funny stories. He had many an anecdoteof the gilded youth of his time. There were some exquisites for whosedelicate skins the embroidered borders of even Dacca muslins were toocoarse, so that to wear muslins with the border torn off became, for atime, the tip-top thing to do. 

I was also highly amused to hear from my father for the first time thestory of the milkman who was suspected of watering his milk, and themore men one of his customers detailed to look after his milking thebluer the fluid became, till, at last, when the customer himselfinterviewed him and asked for an explanation, the milkman avowed that ifmore superintendents had to be satisfied it would only make the milk fitto breed fish!

After I had thus spent a few months with him my father sent me back homewith his attendant Kishori. 

PART IV

(16) My Return

The chains of the rigorous regime which had bound me snapped for goodwhen I set out from home. On my return I gained an accession of rights. In my case my very nearness had so long kept me out of mind; now that Ihad been out of sight I came back into view. 

I got a foretaste of appreciation while still on the return journey. Travelling alone as I was, with an attendant, brimming with health andspirits, and conspicuous with my gold-worked cap, all the English peopleI came across in the train made much of me. 

When I arrived it was not merely a home-coming from travel, it was alsoa return from my exile in the servants' quarters to my proper place inthe inner apartments. Whenever the inner household assembled in mymother's room I now occupied a seat of honour. And she who was then theyoungest bride of our house lavished on me a wealth of affection andregard. 

In infancy the loving care of woman is to be had without the asking, and, being as much a necessity as light and air, is as simply acceptedwithout any conscious response; rather does the growing child oftendisplay an eagerness to free itself from the encircling web of woman'ssolicitude. But the unfortunate creature who is deprived of this in itsproper season is beggared indeed. This had been my plight. So afterbeing brought up in the servants' quarters when I suddenly came in for aprofusion of womanly affection, I could hardly remain unconscious of it. 

In the days when the inner apartments were as yet far away from me, theywere the elysium of my imagination. The zenana, which from an outsideview is a place of confinement, for me was the abode of all freedom. Neither school nor Pandit were there; nor, it seemed to me, did anybodyhave to do what they did not want to. Its secluded leisure had somethingmysterious about it; one played about, or did as one liked and had notto render an account of one's doings. Specially so with my youngestsister, to whom, though she attended Nilkamal Pandit's class with us, itseemed to make no difference in his behaviour whether she did herlessons well or ill. Then again, while, by ten o'clock, we had to hurrythrough our breakfast and be ready for school, she, with her queuedangling behind, walked unconcernedly away, withinwards, tantalising usto distraction. 

And when the new bride, adorned with her necklace of gold, came into ourhouse, the mystery of the inner apartments deepened. She, who came fromoutside and yet became one of us, who was unknown and yet our own, attracted me strangely--with her I burned to make friends. But if bymuch contriving I managed to draw near, my youngest sister would hustleme off with: "What d'you boys want here--get away outside. " The insultadded to the disappointment cut me to the quick. Through the glass doorsof their cabinets one could catch glimpses of all manner of curiousplaythings--creations of porcelain and glass--gorgeous in colouring andornamentation. We were not deemed worthy even to touch them, much lesscould we muster up courage to ask for any to play with. Neverthelessthese rare and wonderful objects, as they were to us boys, served totinge with an additional attraction the lure of the inner apartments. 

Thus had I been kept at arm's length with repeated rebuffs. As the outerworld, so, for me, the interior, was unattainable. Wherefore theimpressions of it that I did get appeared to me like pictures. 

After nine in the evening, my lessons with Aghore Babu over, I amretiring within for the night. A murky flickering lantern is hanging inthe long venetian-screened corridor leading from the outer to the innerapartments. At its end this passage turns into a flight of four or fivesteps, to which the light does not reach, and down which I pass into thegalleries running round the first inner quadrangle. A shaft of moonlightslants from the eastern sky into the western angle of these verandahs, leaving the rest in darkness. In this patch of light the maids havegathered and are squatting close together, with legs outstretched, rolling cotton waste into lamp-wicks, and chatting in undertones oftheir village homes. Many such pictures are indelibly printed on mymemory. 

Then after our supper, the washing of our hands and feet on the verandahbefore stretching ourselves on the ample expanse of our bed; whereuponone of the nurses Tinkari or Sankari comes and sits by our heads andsoftly croons to us the story of the prince travelling on and on overthe lonely moor, and, as it comes to an end, silence falls on the room. With my face to the wall I gaze at the black and white patches, made bythe plaster of the walls fallen off here and there, showing faintly inthe dim light; and out of these I conjure up many a fantastic image as Idrop off to sleep. And sometimes, in the middle of the night, I hearthrough my half-broken sleep the shouts of old Swarup, the watchman, going his rounds from verandah to verandah. 

Then came the new order, when I got in profusion from this innerunknown dreamland of my fancies the recognition for which I had allalong been pining; when that which naturally should have come day by daywas suddenly made good to me with accumulated arrears. I cannot say thatmy head was not turned. 

The little traveller was full of the story of his travels, and, with thestrain of each repetition, the narrative got looser and looser till itutterly refused to fit into the facts. Like everything else, alas, astory also gets stale and the glory of the teller suffers likewise; thatis why he has to add fresh colouring every time to keep up itsfreshness. 

After my return from the hills I was the principal speaker at mymother's open air gatherings on the roof terrace in the evenings. Thetemptation to become famous in the eyes of one's mother is as difficultto resist as such fame is easy to earn. While I was at the NormalSchool, when I first came across the information in some reader that theSun was hundreds and thousands of times as big as the Earth, I at oncedisclosed it to my mother. It served to prove that he who was small tolook at might yet have a considerable amount of bigness about him. Iused also to recite to her the scraps of poetry used as illustrations inthe chapter on prosody or rhetoric of our Bengali grammar. Now Iretailed at her evening gatherings the astronomical tit-bits I hadgleaned from Proctor. 

My father's follower Kishori belonged at one time to a band of recitersof Dasarathi's jingling versions of the Epics. While we were together inthe hills he often said to me: "Oh, my little brother, [28] if I only hadhad you in our troupe we could have got up a splendid performance. " Thiswould open up to me a tempting picture of wandering as a minstrel boyfrom place to place, reciting and singing. I learnt from him many of thesongs in his repertoire and these were in even greater request than mytalks about the photosphere of the Sun or the many moons of Saturn. 

But the achievement of mine which appealed most to my mother was thatwhile the rest of the inmates of the inner apartments had to be contentwith Krittivasa's Bengali rendering of the Ramayana, I had been readingwith my father the original of Maharshi Valmiki himself, Sanscrit metreand all. "Read me some of that Ramayana, _do_!" she said, overjoyed atthis news which I had given her. 

[Illustration: The Servant-maids in the Verandah]

Alas, my reading of Valmiki had been limited to the short extract fromhis Ramayana given in my Sanskrit reader, and even that I had notfully mastered. Moreover, on looking over it now, I found that mymemory had played me false and much of what I thought I knew had becomehazy. But I lacked the courage to plead "I have forgotten" to the eagermother awaiting the display of her son's marvellous talents; so that, inthe reading I gave, a large divergence occurred between Valmiki'sintention and my explanation. That tender-hearted sage, from his seat inheaven, must have forgiven the temerity of the boy seeking the glory ofhis mother's approbation, but not so Madhusudan, [29] the taker down ofPride. 

My mother, unable to contain her feelings at my extraordinary exploit, wanted all to share her admiration. "You must read this to Dwijendra, "(my eldest brother), she said. 

"In for it!" thought I, as I put forth all the excuses I could think of, but my mother would have none of them. She sent for my brotherDwijendra, and, as soon as he arrived, greeted him, with: "Just hearRabi read Valmiki's Ramayan, how splendidly he does it. "

It had to be done! But Madhusudan relented and let me off with just ataste of his pride-reducing power. My brother must have been called awaywhile busy with some literary work of his own. He showed no anxiety tohear me render the Sanscrit into Bengali, and as soon as I had read outa few verses he simply remarked "Very good" and walked away. 

After my promotion to the inner apartments I felt it all the moredifficult to resume my school life. I resorted to all manner ofsubterfuges to escape the Bengal Academy. Then they tried putting me atSt. Xavier's. But the result was no better. 

My elder brothers, after a few spasmodic efforts, gave up all hopes ofme--they even ceased to scold me. One day my eldest sister said: "We hadall hoped Rabi would grow up to be a man, but he has disappointed us theworst. " I felt that my value in the social world was distinctlydepreciating; nevertheless I could not make up my mind to be tied to theeternal grind of the school mill which, divorced as it was from all lifeand beauty, seemed such a hideously cruel combination of hospital andgaol. 

One precious memory of St. Xavier's I still hold fresh and pure--thememory of its teachers. Not that they were all of the same excellence. In particular, in those who taught in our class I could discern noreverential resignation of spirit. They were in nowise above theteaching-machine variety of school masters. As it is, the educationalengine is remorselessly powerful; when to it is coupled the stone millof the outward forms of religion the heart of youth is crushed dryindeed. This power-propelled grindstone type we had at St. Xavier's. Yet, as I say, I possess a memory which elevates my impression of theteachers there to an ideal plane. 

This is the memory of Father DePeneranda. He had very little to do withus--if I remember right he had only for a while taken the place of oneof the masters of our class. He was a Spaniard and seemed to have animpediment in speaking English. It was perhaps for this reason that theboys paid but little heed to what he was saying. It seemed to me thatthis inattentiveness of his pupils hurt him, but he bore it meekly dayafter day. I know not why, but my heart went out to him in sympathy. Hisfeatures were not handsome, but his countenance had for me a strangeattraction. Whenever I looked on him his spirit seemed to be in prayer, a deep peace to pervade him within and without. 

We had half-an-hour for writing our copybooks; that was a time when, penin hand, I used to become absent-minded and my thoughts wandered hitherand thither. One day Father DePeneranda was in charge of this class. Hewas pacing up and down behind our benches. He must have noticed morethan once that my pen was not moving. All of a sudden he stopped behindmy seat. Bending over me he gently laid his hand on my shoulder andtenderly inquired: "Are you not well, Tagore?" It was only a simplequestion, but one I have never been able to forget. 

I cannot speak for the other boys but I felt in him the presence of agreat soul, and even to-day the recollection of it seems to give me apassport into the silent seclusion of the temple of God. 

There was another old Father whom all the boys loved. This was FatherHenry. He taught in the higher classes; so I did not know him well. Butone thing about him I remember. He knew Bengali. He once asked Nirada, aboy in his class, the derivation of his name. Poor Nirada[30] had solong been supremely easy in mind about himself--the derivation of hisname, in particular, had never troubled him in the least; so that he wasutterly unprepared to answer this question. And yet, with so manyabstruse and unknown words in the dictionary, to be worsted by one's ownname would have been as ridiculous a mishap as getting run over by one'sown carriage, so Nirada unblushingly replied: "_Ni_--privative, _rode_--sun-rays; thence Nirode--that which causes an absence of thesun's rays!"

(17) _Home Studies_

Gyan Babu, son of Pandit Vedantavagish, was now our tutor at home. Whenhe found he could not secure my attention for the school course, he gaveup the attempt as hopeless and went on a different tack. He took methrough Kalidas's "Birth of the War-god, " translating it to me as wewent on. He also read Macbeth to me, first explaining the text inBengali, and then confining me to the school room till I had renderedthe day's reading into Bengali verse. In this way he got me to translatethe whole play. I was fortunate enough to lose this translation and soam relieved to that extent of the burden of my _karma_. 

It was Pandit Ramsarvaswa's duty to see to the progress of our Sanskrit. He likewise gave up the fruitless task of teaching grammar to hisunwilling pupil, and read Sakuntala with me instead. One day he took itinto his head to show my translation of Macbeth to Pandit Vidyasagar andtook me over to his house. 

Rajkrishna Mukherji had called at the time and was seated with him. Myheart went pit-a-pat as I entered the great Pandit's study, packed fullof books; nor did his austere visage assist in reviving my courage. Nevertheless, as this was the first time I had had such a distinguishedaudience, my desire to win renown was strong within me. I returned home, I believe, with some reason for an access of enthusiasm. As forRajkrishna Babu, he contented himself with admonishing me to be carefulto keep the language and metre of the Witches' parts different from thatof the human characters. 

During my boyhood Bengali literature was meagre in body, and I think Imust have finished all the readable and unreadable books that there wereat the time. Juvenile literature in those days had not evolved adistinct type of its own--but that I am sure did me no harm. The waterystuff into which literary nectar is now diluted for being served up tothe young takes full account of their childishness, but none of them asgrowing human beings. Children's books should be such as can partly beunderstood by them and partly not. In our childhood we read everyavailable book from one end to the other; and both what we understood, and what we did not, went on working within us. That is how the worlditself reacts on the child consciousness. The child makes its own whatit understands, while that which is beyond leads it on a step forward. 

When Dinabandhu Mitra's satires came out I was not of an age for whichthey were suitable. A kinswoman of ours was reading a copy, but noentreaties of mine could induce her to lend it to me. She used to keepit under lock and key. Its inaccessibility made me want it all the moreand I threw out the challenge that read the book I must and would. 

One afternoon she was playing cards, and her keys, tied to a corner ofher _sari_, hung over her shoulder. I had never paid any attention tocards, in fact I could not stand card games. But my behaviour that daywould hardly have borne this out, so engrossed was I in their playing. At last, in the excitement of one side being about to make a score, Iseized my opportunity and set about untying the knot which held thekeys. I was not skilful, and moreover excited and hasty and so gotcaught. The owner of the _sari_ and of the keys took the fold off hershoulder with a smile, and laid the keys on her lap as she went on withthe game. 

Then I hit on a stratagem. My kinswoman was fond of _pan_, [31] and Ihastened to place some before her. This entailed her rising later on toget rid of the chewed _pan_, and, as she did so, her keys fell off herlap and were replaced over her shoulder. This time they got stolen, theculprit got off, and the book got read! Its owner tried to scold me, but the attempt was not a success, we both laughed so. 

Dr. Rajendralal Mitra used to edit an illustrated monthly miscellany. Mythird brother had a bound annual volume of it in his bookcase. This Imanaged to secure and the delight of reading it through, over and overagain, still comes back to me. Many a holiday noontide has passed withme stretched on my back on my bed, that square volume on my breast, reading about the Narwhal whale, or the curiosities of justice asadministered by the Kazis of old, or the romantic story ofKrishna-kumari. 

Why do we not have such magazines now-a-days? We have philosophical andscientific articles on the one hand, and insipid stories and travels onthe other, but no such unpretentious miscellanies which the ordinaryperson can read in comfort--such as Chambers's or Cassell's or theStrand in England--which supply the general reader with a simple, butsatisfying fare and are of the greatest use to the greatest number. 

I came across another little periodical in my young days called the_Abodhabandhu_ (ignorant man's friend). I found a collection of itsmonthly numbers in my eldest brother's library and devoured them dayafter day, seated on the doorsill of his study, facing a bit of terraceto the South. It was in the pages of this magazine that I made my firstacquaintance with the poetry of Viharilal Chakravarti. His poemsappealed to me the most of all that I read at the time. The artlessflute-strains of his lyrics awoke within me the music of fields andforest-glades. 

Into these same pages I have wept many a tear over a pathetictranslation of Paul and Virginie. That wonderful sea, the breeze-stirredcocoanut forests on its shore, and the slopes beyond lively with thegambols of mountain goats, --a delightfully refreshing mirage theyconjured up on that terraced roof in Calcutta. And oh! the romanticcourting that went on in the forest paths of that secluded island, between the Bengali boy reader and little Virginie with themany-coloured kerchief round her head!

Then came Bankim's _Bangadarsan_, taking the Bengali heart by storm. Itwas bad enough to have to wait till the next monthly number was out, butto be kept waiting further till my elders had done with it was simplyintolerable! Now he who will may swallow at a mouthful the whole of_Chandrashekhar_ or _Bishabriksha_ but the process of longing andanticipating, month after month; of spreading over the long intervalsthe concentrated joy of each short reading, revolving every instalmentover and over in the mind while watching and waiting for the next; thecombination of satisfaction with unsatisfied craving, of burningcuriosity with its appeasement; these long drawn out delights of goingthrough the original serial none will ever taste again. 

The compilations from the old poets by Sarada Mitter and Akshay Sarkarwere also of great interest to me. Our elders were subscribers, but notvery regular readers, of these series, so that it was not difficult forme to get at them. Vidyapati's quaint and corrupt Maithili languageattracted me all the more because of its unintelligibility. I tried tomake out his sense without the help of the compiler's notes, jottingdown in my own note book all the more obscure words with their contextas many times as they occurred. I also noted grammatical peculiaritiesaccording to my lights. 

(18) _My Home Environment_

One great advantage which I enjoyed in my younger days was the literaryand artistic atmosphere which pervaded our house. I remember how, when Iwas quite a child, I would be leaning against the verandah railingswhich overlooked the detached building comprising the reception rooms. These rooms would be lighted up every evening. Splendid carriages woulddraw up under the portico, and visitors would be constantly coming andgoing. What was happening I could not very well make out, but would keepstaring at the rows of lighted casements from my place in the darkness. The intervening space was not great but the gulf between my infant worldand these lights was immense. 

My elder cousin Ganendra had just got a drama written by PanditTarkaratna and was having it staged in the house. His enthusiasm forliterature and the fine arts knew no bounds. He was the centre of thegroup who seem to have been almost consciously striving to bring aboutfrom every side the renascence which we see to-day. A pronouncednationalism in dress, literature, music, art and the drama had awakenedin and around him. He was a keen student of the history of differentcountries and had begun but could not complete a historical work inBengali. He had translated and published the Sanskrit drama, Vikramorvasi, and many a well-known hymn is his composition. He may besaid to have given us the lead in writing patriotic poems and songs. This was in the days when the Hindu Mela was an annual institution andthere his song "Ashamed am I to sing of India's glories" used to besung. 

I was still a child when my cousin Ganendra died in the prime of hisyouth, but for those who have once beheld him it is impossible to forgethis handsome, tall and stately figure. He had an irresistible socialinfluence. He could draw men round him and keep them bound to him; whilehis powerful attraction was there, disruption was out of the question. He was one of those--a type peculiar to our country--who, by theirpersonal magnetism, easily establish themselves in the centre of theirfamily or village. In any other country, where large political, socialor commercial groups are being formed, such would as naturally becomenational leaders. The power of organising a large number of men into acorporate group depends on a special kind of genius. Such genius in ourcountry runs to waste, a waste, as pitiful, it seems to me, as that ofpulling down a star from the firmament for use as a lucifer match. 

I remember still better his younger brother, my cousin Gunendra. [32] Helikewise kept the house filled with his personality. His large, graciousheart embraced alike relatives, friends, guests and dependants. Whetherin his broad south verandah, or on the lawn by the fountain, or at thetank-edge on the fishing platform, he presided over self-invitedgatherings, like hospitality incarnate. His wide appreciation of art andtalent kept him constantly radiant with enthusiasm. New ideas offestivity or frolic, theatricals or other entertainments, found in him aready patron, and with his help would flourish and find fruition. 

We were too young then to take any part in these doings, but the wavesof merriment and life to which they gave rise came and beat at the doorsof our curiosity. I remember how a burlesque composed by my eldestbrother was once being rehearsed in my cousin's big drawing room. Fromour place against the verandah railings of our house we could hear, through the open windows opposite, roars of laughter mixed with thestrains of a comic song, and would also occasionally catch glimpses ofAkshay Mazumdar's extraordinary antics. We could not gather exactly whatthe song was about, but lived in hopes of being able to find that outsometime. 

I recall how a trifling circumstance earned for me the special regard ofcousin Gunendra. Never had I got a prize at school except once for goodconduct. Of the three of us my nephew Satya was the best at his lessons. He once did well at some examination and was awarded a prize. As wecame home I jumped off the carriage to give the great news to my cousinwho was in the garden. "Satya has got a prize" I shouted as I ran tohim. He drew me to his knees with a smile. "And have _you_ not got aprize?" he asked. "No, " said I, "not I, it's Satya. " My genuine pleasureat Satya's success seemed to touch my cousin particularly. He turned tohis friends and remarked on it as a very creditable trait. I wellremember how mystified I felt at this, for I had not thought of myfeeling in that light. This prize that I got for not getting a prize didnot do me good. There is no harm in making gifts to children, but theyshould not be rewards. It is not healthy for youngsters to be madeself-conscious. 

After the mid-day meal cousin Gunendra would attend the estate officesin our part of the house. The office room of our elders was a sort ofclub where laughter and conversation were freely mixed with matters ofbusiness. My cousin would recline on a couch, and I would seize someopportunity of edging up to him. 

[Illustration: My Eldest Brother]

He usually told me stories from Indian History. I still remember thesurprise with which I heard how Clive, after establishing British rulein India, went back home and cut his own throat. On the one hand newhistory being made, on the other a tragic chapter hidden away in themysterious darkness of a human heart. How could there be such dismalfailure within and such brilliant success outside? This weighed heavilyon my mind the whole day. 

Some days cousin Gunendra would not be allowed to remain in any doubt asto the contents of my pocket. At the least encouragement out would comemy manuscript book, unabashed. I need hardly state that my cousin wasnot a severe critic; in point of fact the opinions he expressed wouldhave done splendidly as advertisements. None the less, when in any of mypoetry my childishness became too obtrusive, he could not restrain hishearty "Ha! Ha!"

One day it was a poem on "Mother India" and as at the end of one linethe only rhyme I could think of meant a cart, I had to drag in that cartin spite of there not being the vestige of a road by which it couldreasonably arrive, --the insistent claims of rhyme would not hear of anyexcuses mere reason had to offer. The storm of laughter with whichcousin Gunendra greeted it blew away the cart back over the sameimpossible path it had come by, and it has not been heard of since. 

My eldest brother was then busy with his masterpiece "The DreamJourney, " his cushion seat placed in the south verandah, a low deskbefore him. Cousin Gunendra would come and sit there for a time everymorning. His immense capacity for enjoyment, like the breezes of spring, helped poetry to sprout. My eldest brother would go on alternatelywriting and reading out what he had written, his boisterous mirth at hisown conceits making the verandah tremble. My brother wrote a great dealmore than he finally used in his finished work, so fertile was hispoetic inspiration. Like the superabounding mango flowerets which carpetthe shade of the mango topes in spring time, the rejected pages of his"Dream Journey" were to be found scattered all over the house. Hadanyone preserved them they would have been to-day a basketful of flowersadorning our Bengali literature. 

Eavesdropping at doors and peeping round corners, we used to get ourfull share of this feast of poetry, so plentiful was it, with so much tospare. My eldest brother was then at the height of his wonderful powers;and from his pen surged, in untiring wave after wave, a tidal flood ofpoetic fancy, rhyme and expression, filling and overflowing its bankswith an exuberantly joyful pæan of triumph. Did we quite understand "TheDream Journey"? But then did we need absolutely to understand in orderto enjoy it? We might not have got at the wealth in the oceandepths--what could we have done with it if we had?--but we revelled inthe delights of the waves on the shore; and how gaily, at theirbuffettings, did our life-blood course through every vein and artery!

The more I think of that period the more I realise that we have nolonger the thing called a _mujlis_. [33] In our boyhood we beheld thedying rays of that intimate sociability which was characteristic of thelast generation. Neighbourly feelings were then so strong that the_mujlis_ was a necessity, and those who could contribute to itsamenities were in great request. People now-a-days call on each other onbusiness, or as a matter of social duty, but not to foregather by way of_mujlis_. They have not the time, nor are there the same intimaterelations! What goings and comings we used to see, how merry were therooms and verandahs with the hum of conversation and the snatches oflaughter! The faculty our predecessors had of becoming the centre ofgroups and gatherings, of starting and keeping up animated and amusinggossip, has vanished. Men still come and go, but those same verandahsand rooms seem empty and deserted. 

In those days everything from furniture to festivity was designed to beenjoyed by the many, so that whatever of pomp or magnificence theremight have been did not savour of hauteur. These appendages have sinceincreased in quantity, but they have become unfeeling, and know not theart of making high and low alike feel at home. The bare-bodied, theindigently clad, no longer have the right to use and occupy them, without a permit, on the strength of their smiling faces alone. Thosewhom we now-a-days seek to imitate in our house-building and furnishing, they have their own society, with its wide hospitality. The mischiefwith us is that we have lost what we had, but have not the means ofbuilding up afresh on the European standard, with the result that ourhome-life has become joyless. We still meet for business or politicalpurposes, but never for the pleasure of simply meeting one another. Wehave ceased to contrive opportunities to bring men together simplybecause we love our fellow-men. I can imagine nothing more ugly thanthis social miserliness; and, when I look back on those whose ringinglaughter, coming straight from their hearts, used to lighten for us theburden of household cares, they seem to have been visitors from someother world. 

(19) _Literary Companions_

There came to me in my boyhood a friend whose help in my literaryprogress was invaluable. Akshay Chowdhury was a school-fellow of myfourth brother. He was an M. A. In English Literature for which his lovewas as great as his proficiency therein. On the other hand he had anequal fondness for our older Bengali authors and Vaishnava Poets. Heknew hundreds of Bengali songs of unknown authorship, and on these hewould launch, with voice uplifted, regardless of tune, or consequence, or of the express disapproval of his hearers. Nor could anything, withinhim or without, prevent his loudly beating time to his own music, forwhich the nearest table or book served his nimble fingers to rap avigorous tattoo on, to help to enliven the audience. 

He was also one of those with an inordinate capacity for extractingenjoyment from all and sundry. He was as ready to absorb every bit ofgoodness in a thing as he was lavish in singing its praises. He had anextraordinary gift as a lightning composer of lyrics and songs of nomean merit, but in which he himself had no pride of authorship. He tookno further notice of the heaps of scattered scraps of paper on which hispencil writings had been indited. He was as indifferent to his powersas they were prolific. 

One of his longer poetic pieces was much appreciated when it appeared inthe _Bangadarsan_, and I have heard his songs sung by many who knewnothing at all about their composer. 

A genuine delight in literature is much rarer than erudition, and it wasthis enthusiastic enjoyment in Akshay Babu which used to awaken my ownliterary appreciation. He was as liberal in his friendships as in hisliterary criticisms. Among strangers he was as a fish out of water, butamong friends discrepancies in wisdom or age made no difference to him. With us boys he was a boy. When he took his leave, late in the evening, from the _mujlis_ of our elders, I would buttonhole and drag him to ourschool room. There, with undiminished geniality he would make himselfthe life and soul of our little gathering, seated on the top of ourstudy table. On many such occasions I have listened to him going into arapturous dissertation on some English poem; engaged him in someappreciative discussion, critical inquiry, or hot dispute; or read tohim some of my own writings and been rewarded in return with praiseunsparing. 

My fourth brother Jyotirindra was one of the chief helpers in myliterary and emotional training. He was an enthusiast himself and lovedto evoke enthusiasm in others. He did not allow the difference betweenour ages to be any bar to my free intellectual and sentimentalintercourse with him. This great boon of freedom which he allowed me, none else would have dared to do; many even blamed him for it. Hiscompanionship made it possible for me to shake off my shrinkingsensitiveness. It was as necessary for my soul after its rigorousrepression during my infancy as are the monsoon clouds after a fierysummer. 

But for such snapping of my shackles I might have become crippled forlife. Those in authority are never tired of holding forth thepossibility of the abuse of freedom as a reason for withholding it, butwithout that possibility freedom would not be really free. And the onlyway of learning how to use properly a thing is through its misuse. Formyself, at least, I can truly say that what little mischief resultedfrom my freedom always led the way to the means of curing mischief. Ihave never been able to make my own anything which they tried to compelme to swallow by getting hold of me, physically or mentally, by theears. Nothing but sorrow have I ever gained except when left freely tomyself. 

My brother Jyotirindra unreservedly let me go my own way toself-knowledge, and only since then could my nature prepare to putforth its thorns, it may be, but likewise its flowers. This experienceof mine has led me to dread, not so much evil itself, as tyrannicalattempts to create goodness. Of punitive police, political or moral, Ihave a wholesome horror. The state of slavery which is thus brought onis the worst form of cancer to which humanity is subject. 

My brother at one time would spend days at his piano engrossed in thecreation of new tunes. Showers of melody would stream from under hisdancing fingers, while Akshay Babu and I, seated on either side, wouldbe busy fitting words to the tunes as they grew into shape to help tohold them in our memories. [34] This is how I served my apprenticeship inthe composition of songs. 

While we were growing to boyhood music was largely cultivated in ourfamily. This had the advantage of making it possible for me to imbibeit, without an effort, into my whole being. It had also the disadvantageof not giving me that technical mastery which the effort of learningstep by step alone can give. Of what may be called proficiency in music, therefore, I acquired none. 

Ever since my return from the Himalayas it was a case of my getting morefreedom, more and more. The rule of the servants came to an end; I sawto it with many a device that the bonds of my school life were alsoloosened; nor to my home tutors did I give much scope. Gyan Babu, aftertaking me through "The Birth of the War-god" and one or two other booksin a desultory fashion, went off to take up a legal career. Then cameBraja Babu. The first day he put me on to translate "The Vicar ofWakefield. " I found that I did not dislike the book; but when thisencouraged him to make more elaborate arrangements for the advancementof my learning I made myself altogether scarce. 

As I have said, my elders gave me up. Neither I nor they were troubledwith any more hopes of my future. So I felt free to devote myself tofilling up my manuscript book. And the writings which thus filled itwere no better than could have been expected. My mind had nothing in itbut hot vapour, and vapour-filled bubbles frothed and eddied round avortex of lazy fancy, aimless and unmeaning. No forms were evolved, there was only the distraction of movement, a bubbling up, a burstingback into froth. What little of matter there was in it was not mine, butborrowed from other poets. What was my own was the restlessness, theseething tension within me. When motion has been born, while yet thebalance of forces has not matured, then is there blind chaos indeed. 

My sister-in-law[35] was a great lover of literature. She did not readsimply to kill time, but the Bengali books which she read filled herwhole mind. I was a partner in her literary enterprises. She was adevoted admirer of "The Dream Journey. " So was I; the more particularlyas, having been brought up in the atmosphere of its creation, itsbeauties had become intertwined with every fibre of my heart. Fortunately it was entirely beyond my power of imitation, so it neveroccurred to me to attempt anything like it. 

"The Dream Journey" may be likened to a superb palace of Allegory, withinnumerable halls, chambers, passages, corners and niches full ofstatuary and pictures, of wonderful design and workmanship; and in thegrounds around gardens, bowers, fountains and shady nooks in profusion. Not only do poetic thought and fancy abound, but the richness andvariety of language and expression is also marvellous. It is not a smallthing, this creative power which can bring into being so magnificent astructure complete in all its artistic detail, and that is perhaps whythe idea of attempting an imitation never occurred to me. 

At this time Viharilal Chakravarti's series of songs called _SaradaMangal_ were coming out in the _Arya Darsan_. My sister-in-law wasgreatly taken with the sweetness of these lyrics. Most of them she knewby heart. She used often to invite the poet to our house and hadembroidered for him a cushion-seat with her own hands. This gave me theopportunity of making friends with him. He came to have a greataffection for me, and I took to dropping in at his house at all times ofthe day, morning, noon or evening. His heart was as large as his body, and a halo of fancy used to surround him like a poetic astral body whichseemed to be his truer image. He was always full of true artistic joy, and whenever I have been to him I have breathed in my share of it. Oftenhave I come upon him in his little room on the third storey, in the heatof noonday, sprawling on the cool polished cement floor, writing hispoems. Mere boy though I was, his welcome was always so genuine andhearty that I never felt the least awkwardness in approaching him. Then, wrapt in his inspiration and forgetful of all surroundings, he wouldread out his poems or sing his songs to me. Not that he had much of thegift of song in his voice; but then he was not altogether tuneless, andone could get a fair idea of the intended melody. [36] When with eyesclosed he raised his rich deep voice, its expressiveness made up forwhat it lacked in execution. I still seem to hear some of his songs ashe sang them. I would also sometimes set his words to music and singthem to him. 

He was a great admirer of Valmiki and Kalidas. I remember how once afterreciting a description of the Himalayas from Kalidas with the fullstrength of his voice, he said: "The succession of long [=a] sounds hereis not an accident. The poet has deliberately repeated this sound allthe way from _Devatatma_ down to _Nagadhiraja_ as an assistance inrealising the glorious expanse of the Himalayas. "

At the time the height of my ambition was to become a poet like VihariBabu. I might have even succeeded in working myself up to the beliefthat I was actually writing like him, but for my sister-in-law, hiszealous devotee, who stood in the way. She would keep reminding me of aSanskrit saying that the unworthy aspirant after poetic fame departs injeers! Very possibly she knew that if my vanity was once allowed to getthe upper hand it would be difficult afterwards to bring it undercontrol. So neither my poetic abilities nor my powers of song readilyreceived any praise from her; rather would she never let slip anopportunity of praising somebody else's singing at my expense; with theresult that I gradually became quite convinced of the defects of myvoice. Misgivings about my poetic powers also assailed me; but, as thiswas the only field of activity left in which I had any chance ofretaining my self-respect, I could not allow the judgment of another todeprive me of all hope; moreover, so insistent was the spur within methat to stop my poetic adventure was a matter of sheer impossibility. 

(20) _Publishing_

My writings so far had been confined to the family circle. Then wasstarted the monthly called the _Gyanankur_, Sprouting Knowledge, and, asbefitted its name it secured an embryo poet as one of its contributors. It began to publish all my poetic ravings indiscriminately, and to thisday I have, in a corner of my mind, the fear that, when the day ofjudgment comes for me, some enthusiastic literary police-agent willinstitute a search in the inmost zenana of forgotten literature, regardless of the claims of privacy, and bring these out before thepitiless public gaze. 

My first prose writing also saw the light in the pages of the_Gyanankur_. It was a critical essay and had a bit of a history. 

A book of poems had been published entitled _Bhubanmohini Pratibha_. [37]Akshay Babu in the _Sadharani_ and Bhudeb Babu in the _EducationGazette_ hailed this new poet with effusive acclamation. A friend ofmine, older than myself, whose friendship dates from then, would comeand show me letters he had received signed _Bhubanmohini_. He was one ofthose whom the book had captivated and used frequently to sendreverential offerings of books or cloth[38] to the address of thereputed authoress. 

Some of these poems were so wanting in restraint both of thought andlanguage that I could not bear the idea of their being written by awoman. The letters that were shown to me made it still less possible forme to believe in the womanliness of the writer. But my doubts did notshake my friend's devotion and he went on with the worship of his idol. 

Then I launched into a criticism of the work of this writer. I letmyself go, and eruditely held forth on the distinctive features oflyrics and other short poems, my great advantage being that printedmatter is so unblushing, so impassively unbetraying of the writer's realattainments. My friend turned up in a great passion and hurled at me thethreat that a B. A. Was writing a reply. A B. A. ! I was struckspeechless. I felt the same as in my younger days when my nephew Satyahad shouted for a policeman. I could see the triumphal pillar ofargument, erected upon my nice distinctions, crumbling before my eyes atthe merciless assaults of authoritative quotations; and the dooreffectually barred against my ever showing my face to the reading publicagain. Alas, my critique, under what evil star wert thou born! I spentday after day in the direst suspense. But, like Satya's policeman, theB. A. Failed to appear. 

(21) _Bhanu Singha_

As I have said I was a keen student of the series of old Vaishnava poemswhich were being collected and published by Babus Akshay Sarkar andSaroda Mitter. Their language, largely mixed with Maithili, I founddifficult to understand; but for that very reason I took all the morepains to get at their meaning. My feeling towards them was that sameeager curiosity with which I regarded the ungerminated sprout withinthe seed, or the undiscovered mystery under the dust covering of theearth. My enthusiasm was kept up with the hope of bringing to light someunknown poetical gems as I went deeper and deeper into the unexploreddarkness of this treasure-house. 

While I was so engaged, the idea got hold of me of enfolding my ownwritings in just such a wrapping of mystery. I had heard from AkshayChowdhury the story of the English boy-poet Chatterton. What his poetrywas like I had no idea, nor perhaps had Akshay Babu himself. Had weknown, the story might have lost its charm. As it happened themelodramatic element in it fired my imagination; for had not so manybeen deceived by his successful imitation of the classics? And at lastthe unfortunate youth had died by his own hand. Leaving aside thesuicide part I girded up my loins to emulate young Chatterton'sexploits. 

One noon the clouds had gathered thickly. Rejoicing in the gratefulshade of the cloudy midday rest-hour, I lay prone on the bed in my innerroom and wrote on a slate the imitation _Maithili_ poem _Gahana kusumakunja majhe_. I was greatly pleased with it and lost no time in readingit out to the first one I came across; of whose understanding a word ofit there happened to be not the slightest danger, and who consequentlycould not but gravely nod and say, "Good, very good indeed!"

To my friend mentioned a while ago I said one day: "A tattered oldmanuscript has been discovered while rummaging in the _Adi Brahma Samaj_library and from this I have copied some poems by an old Vaishnava Poetnamed Bhanu Singha;"[39] with which I read some of my imitation poems tohim. He was profoundly stirred. "These could not have been written evenby _Vidyapati_ or _Chandidas_!" he rapturously exclaimed. "I really musthave that MS. To make over to Akshay Babu for publication. "

Then I showed him my manuscript book and conclusively proved that thepoems could not have been written by either _Vidyapati_ or _Chandidas_because the author happened to be myself. My friend's face fell as hemuttered, "Yes, yes, they're not half bad. "

When these Bhanu Singha poems were coming out in the _Bharati_, Dr. Nishikanta Chatterjee was in Germany. He wrote a thesis on the lyricpoetry of our country comparing it with that of Europe. Bhanu Singha wasgiven a place of honour as one of the old poets such as no modern writercould have aspired to. This was the thesis on which NishikantaChatterjee got his Ph. D. !

Whoever Bhanu Singha might have been, had his writings fallen into thehands of latter-day me, I swear I would not have been deceived. Thelanguage might have passed muster; for that which the old poets wrote inwas not their mother tongue, but an artificial language varying in thehands of different poets. But there was nothing artificial about theirsentiments. Any attempt to test Bhanu Singha's poetry by its ring wouldhave shown up the base metal. It had none of the ravishing melody of ourancient pipes, but only the tinkle of a modern, foreign barrel organ. 

(22) _Patriotism_

From an outside point of view many a foreign custom would appear to havegained entry into our family, but at its heart flames a national pridewhich has never flickered. The genuine regard which my father had forhis country never forsook him through all the revolutionary vicissitudesof his life, and this in his descendants has taken shape as a strongpatriotic feeling. Love of country was, however, by no means acharacteristic of the times of which I am writing. Our educated men thenkept at arms' length both the language and thought of their nativeland. Nevertheless my elder brothers had always cultivated Bengaliliterature. When on one occasion some new connection by marriage wrotemy father an English letter it was promptly returned to the writer. 

The _Hindu Mela_ was an annual fair which had been instituted with theassistance of our house. Babu Nabagopal Mitter was appointed itsmanager. This was perhaps the first attempt at a reverential realisationof India as our motherland. My second brother's popular national anthem"_Bharater Jaya_, " was composed, then. The singing of songs glorifyingthe motherland, the recitation of poems of the love of country, theexhibition of indigenous arts and crafts and the encouragement ofnational talent and skill were the features of this _Mela_. 

On the occasion of Lord Curzon's Delhi durbar I wrote a prose-paper--atthe time of Lord Lytton's it was a poem. The British Government of thosedays feared the Russians it is true, but not the pen of a 14-year oldpoet. So, though my poem lacked none of the fiery sentiments appropriateto my age, there were no signs of any consternation in the ranks of theauthorities from Commander-in-chief down to Commissioner of Police. Nordid any lachrymose letter in the _Times_ predict a speedy downfall ofthe Empire for this apathy of its local guardians. I recited my poemunder a tree at the Hindu Mela and one of my hearers was Nabin Sen, thepoet. He reminded me of this after I had grown up. 

My fourth brother, Jyotirindra, was responsible for a politicalassociation of which old Rajnarain Bose was the president. It held itssittings in a tumbledown building in an obscure Calcutta lane. Itsproceedings were enshrouded in mystery. This mystery was its only claimto be awe-inspiring, for as a matter of fact there was nothing in ourdeliberations or doings of which government or people need have beenafraid. The rest of our family had no idea where we were spending ourafternoons. Our front door would be locked, the meeting room indarkness, the watchword a Vedic _mantra_, our talk in whispers. Thesealone provided us with enough of a thrill, and we wanted nothing more. Mere child as I was, I also was a member. We surrounded ourselves withsuch an atmosphere of pure frenzy that we always seemed to be soaringaloft on the wings of our enthusiasm. Of bashfulness, diffidence or fearwe had none, our main object being to bask in the heat of our ownfervour. 

Bravery may sometimes have its drawbacks; but it has always maintained adeep hold on the reverence of mankind. In the literature of allcountries we find an unflagging endeavour to keep alive this reverence. So in whatever state a particular set of men in a particular localitymay be, they cannot escape the constant impact of these stimulatingshocks. We had to be content with responding to such shocks, as best wecould, by letting loose our imagination, coming together, talking talland singing fervently. 

There can be no doubt that closing up all outlets and barring allopenings to a faculty so deep-seated in the nature of man, and moreoverso prized by him, creates an unnatural condition favourable todegenerate activity. It is not enough to keep open only the avenues toclerical employment in any comprehensive scheme of ImperialGovernment--if no road be left for adventurous daring the soul of manwill pine for deliverance, and secret passages still be sought, of whichthe pathways are tortuous and the end unthinkable. I firmly believe thatif in those days Government had paraded a frightfulness born ofsuspicion, then the comedy which the youthful members of thisassociation had been at might have turned into grim tragedy. The play, however, is over, not a brick of Fort-William is any the worse, and weare now smiling at its memory. 

My brother Jyotirindra began to busy himself with a national costumefor all India, and submitted various designs to the association. The_Dhoti_ was not deemed business-like; trousers were too foreign; so hehit upon a compromise which considerably detracted from the dhoti whilefailing to improve the trousers. That is to say, the trousers weredecorated with the addition of a false dhoti-fold in front and behind. The fearsome thing that resulted from combining a turban with a_Sola-topee_ our most enthusiastic member would not have had thetemerity to call ornamental. No person of ordinary courage could havedared it, but my brother unflinchingly wore the complete suit in broadday-light, passing through the house of an afternoon to the carriagewaiting outside, indifferent alike to the stare of relation or friend, door-keeper or coachman. There may be many a brave Indian ready to diefor his country, but there are but few, I am sure, who even for the goodof the nation would face the public streets in such pan-Indian garb. 

Every Sunday my brother would get up a _Shikar_ party. Many of those whojoined in it, uninvited, we did not even know. There was a carpenter, asmith and others from all ranks of society. Bloodshed was the only thinglacking in this _shikar_, at least I cannot recall any. Its otherappendages were so abundant and satisfying that we felt the absence ofdead or wounded game to be a trifling circumstance of no account. As wewere out from early morning, my sister-in-law furnished us with aplentiful supply of _luchis_ with appropriate accompaniments; and asthese did not depend upon the fortunes of our chase we never had toreturn empty. 

The neighbourhood of Maniktola is not wanting in Villa-gardens. We wouldturn into any one of these at the end, and high-and low-born alike, seated on the bathing platform of a tank, would fling ourselves on the_luchis_ in right good earnest, all that was left of them being thevessels they were brought in. 

Braja Babu was one of the most enthusiastic of these blood-thirstless_shikaris_. He was the Superintendent of the Metropolitan Institutionand had also been our private tutor for a time. One day he had the happyidea of accosting the _mali_ (gardener) of a villa-garden into which wehad thus trespassed with: "Hallo, has uncle been here lately!" The_mali_ lost no time in saluting him respectfully before he replied: "No, Sir, the master hasn't been lately. " "All right, get us some greencocoanuts off the trees. " We had a fine drink after our _luchis_ thatday. 

A Zamindar in a small way was among our party. He owned a villa on theriver side. One day we had a picnic there together, in defiance of casterules. In the afternoon there was a tremendous storm. We stood on theriver-side stairs leading into the water and shouted out songs to itsaccompaniment. I cannot truthfully assert that all the seven notes ofthe scale could properly be distinguished in Rajnarain Babu's singing, nevertheless he sent forth his voice and, as in the old Sanskrit worksthe text is drowned by the notes, so in Rajnarain Babu's musical effortsthe vigorous play of his limbs and features overwhelmed his feeblervocal performance; his head swung from side to side marking time, whilethe storm played havoc with his flowing beard. It was late in the nightwhen we turned homewards in a hackney carriage. By that time the stormclouds had dispersed and the stars twinkled forth. The darkness hadbecome intense, the atmosphere silent, the village roads deserted, andthe thickets on either side filled with fireflies like a carnival ofsparks scattered in some noiseless revelry. 

One of the objects of our association was to encourage the manufactureof lucifer matches, and similar small industries. For this purpose eachmember had to contribute a tenth of his income. Matches had to be made, but matchwood was difficult to get; for though we all know with whatfiery energy a bundle of _khangras_[40] can be wielded in capable hands, the thing that burns at its touch is not a lamp wick. After manyexperiments we succeeded in making a boxful of matches. The patrioticenthusiasm which was thus evidenced did not constitute their only value, for the money that was spent in their making might have served to lightthe family hearth for the space of a year. Another little defect wasthat these matches could not be got to burn unless there was a lighthandy to touch them up with. If they could only have inherited some ofthe patriotic flame of which they were born they might have beenmarketable even to-day. 

News came to us that some young student was trying to make a power loom. Off we went to see it. None of us had the knowledge with which to testits practical usefulness, but in our capacity for believing and hopingwe were inferior to none. The poor fellow had got into a bit of debtover the cost of his machine which we repaid for him. Then one day wefound Braja Babu coming over to our house with a flimsy country toweltied round his head. "Made in our loom!" he shouted as with handsuplifted he executed a war-dance. The outside of Braja Babu's head hadthen already begun to ripen into grey!

At last some worldly-wise people came and joined our society, made ustaste of the fruit of knowledge, and broke up our little paradise. 

When I first knew Rajnarain Babu, I was not old enough to appreciate hismany-sidedness. In him were combined many opposites. In spite of hishoary hair and beard he was as young as the youngest of us, hisvenerable exterior serving only as a white mantle for keeping his youthperpetually fresh. Even his extensive learning had not been able to dohim any damage, for it left him absolutely simple. To the end of hislife the incessant flow of his hearty laughter suffered no check, neither from the gravity of age, nor ill-health, nor domesticaffliction, nor profundity of thought, nor variety of knowledge, all ofwhich had been his in ample measure. He had been a favourite pupil ofRichardson and brought up in an atmosphere of English learning, nevertheless he flung aside all obstacles due to his early habit andgave himself up lovingly and devotedly to Bengali literature. Though themeekest of men, he was full of fire which flamed its fiercest in hispatriotism, as though to burn to ashes the shortcomings and destitutionof his country. The memory of this smile-sweetened fervour-illuminedlifelong-youthful saint is one that is worth cherishing by ourcountrymen. 

(23) _The Bharati_

On the whole the period of which I am writing was for me one of ecstaticexcitement. Many a night have I spent without sleep, not for anyparticular reason but from a mere desire to do the reverse of theobvious. I would keep up reading in the dim light of our school room allalone; the distant church clock would chime every quarter as if eachpassing hour was being put up to auction; and the loud _Haribols_ of thebearers of the dead, passing along Chitpore Road on their way to theNimtollah cremation ground, would now and then resound. Through somesummer moonlight nights I would be wandering about like an unquietspirit among the lights and shadows of the tubs and pots on the gardenof the roof-terrace. 

Those who would dismiss this as sheer poetising would be wrong. The veryearth in spite of its having aged considerably surprises us occasionallyby its departure from sober stability; in the days of its youth, whenit had not become hardened and crusty, it was effusively volcanic andindulged in many a wild escapade. In the days of man's first youth thesame sort of thing happens. So long as the materials which go to formhis life have not taken on their final shape they are apt to beturbulent in the process of their formation. 

This was the time when my brother Jyotirindra decided to start the_Bharati_ with our eldest brother as editor, giving us fresh food forenthusiasm. I was then just sixteen, but I was not left out of theeditorial staff. A short time before, in all the insolence of myyouthful vanity, I had written a criticism of the _Meghanadabadha_. Asacidity is characteristic of the unripe mango so is abuse of theimmature critic. When other powers are lacking, the power of prickingseems to be at its sharpest. I had thus sought immortality by leaving myscratches on that immortal epic. This impudent criticism was my firstcontribution to the Bharati. 

In the first volume I also published a long poem called _Kavikahini_, The Poet's Story. It was the product of an age when the writer had seenpractically nothing of the world except an exaggerated image of his ownnebulous self. So the hero of the story was naturally a poet, not thewriter as he was, but as he imagined or desired himself to seem. Itwould hardly be correct to say that he desired to _be_ what heportrayed; that represented more what he thought was expected of him, what would make the world admiringly nod and say: "Yes, a poet indeed, quite the correct thing. " In it was a great parade of universal love, that pet subject of the budding poet, which sounds as big as it is easyto talk about. While yet any truth has not dawned upon one's own mind, and others' words are one's only stock-in-trade, simplicity andrestraint in expression are not possible. Then, in the endeavour todisplay magnified that which is really big in itself, it becomesimpossible to avoid a grotesque and ridiculous exhibition. 

When I blush to read these effusions of my boyhood I am also struck withthe fear that very possibly in my later writings the same distortion, wrought by straining after effect, lurks in a less obvious form. Theloudness of my voice, I doubt not, often drowns the thing I would say;and some day or other Time will find me out. 

The _Kavikahini_ was the first work of mine to appear in book form. WhenI went with my second brother to Ahmedabad, some enthusiastic friend ofmine took me by surprise by printing and publishing it and sending me acopy. I cannot say that he did well, but the feeling that was roused inme at the time did not resemble that of an indignant judge. He got hispunishment, however, not from the author, but from the public who holdthe purse strings. I have heard that the dead load of the books lay, formany a long day, heavy on the shelves of the booksellers and the mind ofthe luckless publisher. 

Writings of the age at which I began to contribute to the _Bharati_cannot possibly be fit for publication. There is no better way ofensuring repentance at maturity than to rush into print too early. Butit has one redeeming feature: the irresistible impulse to see one'swritings in print exhausts itself during early life. Who are thereaders, what do they say, what printers' errors have remaineduncorrected, these and the like worries run their course as infantilemaladies and leave one leisure in later life to attend to one's literarywork in a healthier frame of mind. 

Bengali literature is not old enough to have elaborated those internalchecks which can serve to control its votaries. As experience in writingis gained the Bengali writer has to evolve the restraining force fromwithin himself. This makes it impossible for him to avoid the creationof a great deal of rubbish during a considerable length of time. Theambition to work wonders with the modest gifts at one's disposal isbound to be an obsession in the beginning, so that the effort totranscend at every step one's natural powers, and therewith the boundsof truth and beauty, is always visible in early writings. To recoverone's normal self, to learn to respect one's powers as they are, is amatter of time. 

However that may be, I have left much of youthful folly to be ashamedof, besmirching the pages of the _Bharati_; and this shames me not forits literary defects alone but for its atrocious impudence, itsextravagant excesses and its high-sounding artificiality. At the sametime I am free to recognise that the writings of that period werepervaded with an enthusiasm the value of which cannot be small. It was aperiod to which, if error was natural, so was the boyish faculty ofhoping, believing and rejoicing. And if the fuel of error was necessaryfor feeding the flame of enthusiasm then while that which was fit to bereduced to ashes will have become ash, the good work done by the flamewill not have been in vain in my life. 

PART V

(24) _Ahmedabad_

When the _Bharati_ entered upon its second year, my second brotherproposed to take me to England; and when my father gave his consent, this further unasked favour of providence came on me as a surprise. 

As a first step I accompanied my brother to Ahmedabad where he wasposted as judge. My sister-in-law with her children was then in England, so the house was practically empty. 

The Judge's house is known as _Shahibagh_ and was a palace of theBadshahs of old. At the foot of the wall supporting a broad terraceflowed the thin summer stream of the Savarmati river along one edge ofits ample bed of sand. My brother used to go off to his court, and Iwould be left all alone in the vast expanse of the palace, with only thecooing of the pigeons to break the midday stillness; and anunaccountable curiosity kept me wandering about the empty rooms. 

Into the niches in the wall of a large chamber my brother had put hisbooks. One of these was a gorgeous edition of Tennyson's works, with bigprint and numerous pictures. The book, for me, was as silent as thepalace, and, much in the same way I wandered among its picture plates. Not that I could not make anything of the text, but it spoke to me morelike inarticulate cooings than words. In my brother's library I alsofound a book of collected Sanskrit poems edited by Dr. Haberlin andprinted at the old Serampore press. This was also beyond myunderstanding but the sonorous Sanskrit words, and the march of themetre, kept me tramping among the _Amaru Shataka_ poems to the mellowroll of their drum call. 

In the upper room of the palace tower was my lonely hermit cell, my onlycompanions being a nest of wasps. In the unrelieved darkness of thenight I slept there alone. Sometimes a wasp or two would drop off thenest on to my bed, and if perchance I happened to roll on one, themeeting was unpleasing to the wasp and keenly discomforting to me. 

On moonlight nights pacing round and round the extensive terraceoverlooking the river was one of my caprices. It was while so doing thatI first composed my own tunes for my songs. The song addressed to theRose-maiden was one of these, and it still finds a place in my publishedworks. 

Finding how imperfect was my knowledge of English I set to work readingthrough some English books with the help of a dictionary. From myearliest years it was my habit not to let any want of completecomprehension interfere with my reading on, quite satisfied with thestructure which my imagination reared on the bits which I understoodhere and there. I am reaping even to-day both the good and bad effectsof this habit. 

(25) _England_

After six months thus spent in Ahmedabad we started for England. In anunlucky moment I began to write letters about my journey to my relativesand to the _Bharati_. Now it is beyond my power to call them back. Thesewere nothing but the outcome of youthful bravado. At that age the mindrefuses to admit that its greatest pride is in its power to understand, to accept, to respect; and that modesty is the best means of enlargingits domain. Admiration and praise are looked upon as a sign of weaknessor surrender, and the desire to cry down and hurt and demolish withargument gives rise to this kind of intellectual fireworks. Theseattempts of mine to establish my superiority by revilement might haveoccasioned me amusement to-day, had not their want of straightness andcommon courtesy been too painful. 

From my earliest years I had had practically no commerce with theoutside world. To be plunged in this state, at the age of 17, into themidst of the social sea of England would have justified considerablemisgiving as to my being able to keep afloat. But as my sister-in-lawhappened to be in Brighton with her children I weathered the first shockof it under her shelter. 

Winter was then approaching. One evening as we were chatting round thefireside, the children came running to us with the exciting news that ithad been snowing. We at once went out. It was bitingly cold, the skyfilled with white moonlight, the earth covered with white snow. It wasnot the face of Nature familiar to me, but something quitedifferent--like a dream. Everything near seemed to have receded faraway, leaving the still white figure of an ascetic steeped in deepmeditation. The sudden revelation, on the mere stepping outside a door, of such wonderful, such immense beauty had never before come upon me. 

My days passed merrily under the affectionate care of my sister-in-lawand in boisterous rompings with the children. They were greatly tickledat my curious English pronunciation, and though in the rest of theirgames I could whole-heartedly join, this I failed to see the fun of. Howcould I explain to them that there was no logical means ofdistinguishing between the sound of _a_ in warm and _o_ in worm. Unlucky that I was, I had to bear the brunt of the ridicule which wasmore properly the due of the vagaries of English spelling. 

I became quite an adept in inventing new ways of keeping the childrenoccupied and amused. This art has stood me in good stead many a timethereafter, and its usefulness for me is not yet over. But I no longerfeel in myself the same unbounded profusion of ready contrivance. Thatwas the first opportunity I had for giving my heart to children, and ithad all the freshness and overflowing exuberance of such a first gift. 

But I had not set out on this journey to exchange a home beyond the seasfor the one on this side. The idea was that I should study Law and comeback a barrister. So one day I was put into a public school in Brighton. The first thing the Headmaster said after scanning my features was:"What a splendid head you have!" This detail lingers in my memorybecause she, who at home was an enthusiast in her self-imposed duty ofkeeping my vanity in check, had impressed on me that my cranium[41] andfeatures generally, compared with that of many another were barely of amedium order. I hope the reader will not fail to count it to my creditthat I implicitly believed her, and inwardly deplored the parsimony ofthe Creator in the matter of my making. On many another occasion, finding myself estimated by my English acquaintances differently fromwhat I had been accustomed to be by her, I was led to seriously worry mymind over the divergence in the standard of taste between the twocountries!

One thing in the Brighton school seemed very wonderful: the other boyswere not at all rude to me. On the contrary they would often thrustoranges and apples into my pockets and run away. I can only ascribe thisuncommon behaviour of theirs to my being a foreigner. 

I was not long in this school either--but that was no fault of theschool. Mr. Tarak Palit[42] was then in England. He could see that thiswas not the way for me to get on, and prevailed upon my brother to allowhim to take me to London, and leave me there to myself in a lodginghouse. The lodgings selected faced the Regent Gardens. It was then thedepth of winter. There was not a leaf on the row of trees in front whichstood staring at the sky with their scraggy snow-covered branches--asight which chilled my very bones. 

For the newly arrived stranger there can hardly be a more cruel placethan London in winter. I knew no one near by, nor could I find my wayabout. The days of sitting alone at a window, gazing at the outsideworld, came back into my life. But the scene in this case was notattractive. There was a frown on its countenance; the sky turbid; thelight lacking lustre like a dead man's eye; the horizon shrunk uponitself; with never an inviting smile from a broad hospitable world. Theroom was but scantily furnished, but there happened to be a harmoniumwhich, after the daylight came to its untimely end, I used to play uponaccording to my fancy. Sometimes Indians would come to see me; and, though my acquaintance with them was but slight, when they rose to leaveI felt inclined to hold them back by their coat-tails. 

While living in these rooms there was one who came to teach me Latin. His gaunt figure with its worn-out clothing seemed no more able than thenaked trees to withstand the winter's grip. I do not know what his agewas but he clearly looked older than his years. Some days in the courseof our lessons he would suddenly be at a loss for some word and lookvacant and ashamed. His people at home counted him a crank. He hadbecome possessed of a theory. He believed that in each age some onedominant idea is manifested in every human society in all parts of theworld; and though it may take different shapes under different degreesof civilisation, it is at bottom one and the same; nor is such ideataken from one by another by any process of adoption, for this truthholds good even where there is no intercourse. His great preoccupationwas the gathering and recording of facts to prove this theory. And whileso engaged his home lacked food, his body clothes. His daughters had butscant respect for his theory and were perhaps constantly upbraiding himfor his infatuation. Some days one could see from his face that he hadlighted upon some new proof, and that his thesis had correspondinglyadvanced. On these occasions I would broach the subject, and waxenthusiastic at his enthusiasm. On other days he would be steeped ingloom, as if his burden was too heavy to bear. Then would our lessonshalt at every step; his eyes wander away into empty space; and his mindrefuse to be dragged into the pages of the first Latin Grammar. I feltkeenly for the poor body-starved theory-burdened soul, and though I wasunder no delusion as to the assistance I got in my Latin, I could notmake up my mind to get rid of him. This pretence of learning Latinlasted as long as I was at these lodgings. When on the eve of leavingthem I offered to settle his dues he said piteously: "I have donenothing, and only wasted your time, I cannot accept any payment fromyou. " It was with great difficulty that I got him at last to take hisfees. 

Though my Latin tutor had never ventured to trouble me with the proofsof his theory, yet up to this day I do not disbelieve it. I am convincedthat the minds of men are connected through some deep-lying continuousmedium, and that a disturbance in one part is by it secretlycommunicated to others. 

Mr. Palit next placed me in the house of a coach named Barker. He usedto lodge and prepare students for their examinations. Except his mildlittle wife there was not a thing with any pretensions to attractivenessabout this household. One can understand how such a tutor can getpupils, for these poor creatures do not often get the chance of making achoice. But it is painful to think of the conditions under which suchmen get wives. Mrs. Barker had attempted to console herself with a petdog, but when Barker wanted to punish his wife he tortured the dog. Sothat her affection for the unfortunate animal only made for anenlargement of her field of sensibility. 

From these surroundings, when my sister-in-law sent for me to Torquay inDevonshire, I was only too glad to run off to her. I cannot tell howhappy I was with the hills there, the sea, the flower-covered meadows, the shade of the pine woods, and my two little restlessly playfulcompanions. I was nevertheless sometimes tormented with questionings asto why, when my eyes were so surfeited with beauty, my mind saturatedwith joy, and my leisure-filled days crossing over the limitless blue ofspace freighted with unalloyed happiness, there should be no call ofpoetry to me. So one day off I went along the rocky shore, armed withMS. Book and umbrella, to fulfil my poet's destiny. The spot I selectedwas of undoubted beauty, for that did not depend on my rhyme or fancy. There was a flat bit of overhanging rock reaching out as with aperpetual eagerness over the waters; rocked on the foam-flecked waves ofthe liquid blue in front, the sunny sky slept smilingly to its lullaby;behind, the shade of the fringe of pines lay spread like the slipped offgarment of some languorous wood nymph. Enthroned on that seat of stone Iwrote a poem _Magnatari_ (the sunken boat). I might have believed to-daythat it was good, had I taken the precaution of sinking it then in thesea. But such consolation is not open to me, for it happens to beexisting in the body; and though banished from my published works, awrit might yet cause it to be produced. 

The messenger of duty however was not idle. Again came its call and Ireturned to London. This time I found a refuge in the household of Dr. Scott. One fine evening with bag and baggage I invaded his home. Onlythe white haired Doctor, his wife and their eldest daughter were there. The two younger girls, alarmed at this incursion of an Indian strangerhad gone off to stay with a relative. I think they came back home onlyafter they got the news of my not being dangerous. 

In a very short time I became like one of the family. Mrs. Scott treatedme as a son, and the heartfelt kindness I got from her daughters is rareeven from one's own relations. 

One thing struck me when living in this family--that human nature iseverywhere the same. We are fond of saying, and I also believed, thatthe devotion of an Indian wife to her husband is something unique, andnot to be found in Europe. But I at least was unable to discern anydifference between Mrs. Scott and an ideal Indian wife. She was entirelywrapped up in her husband. With their modest means there was no fussingabout of too many servants, and Mrs. Scott attended to every detail ofher husband's wants herself. Before he came back home from his work ofan evening, she would arrange his arm-chair and woollen slippers beforethe fire with her own hands. She would never allow herself to forget fora moment the things he liked, or the behaviour which pleased him. Shewould go over the house every morning, with their only maid, from atticto kitchen, and the brass rods on the stairs and the door knobs andfittings would be scrubbed and polished till they shone again. Over andabove this domestic routine there were the many calls of social duty. After getting through all her daily duties she would join with zest inour evening readings and music, for it is not the least of the duties ofa good housewife to make real the gaiety of the leisure hour. 

Some evenings I would join the girls in a table-turning seance. We wouldplace our fingers on a small tea table and it would go capering aboutthe room. It got to be so that whatever we touched began to quake andquiver. Mrs. Scott did not quite like all this. She would sometimesgravely shake her head and say she had her doubts about its being right. She bore it bravely, however, not liking to put a damper on our youthfulspirits. But one day when we put our hands on Dr. Scott's chimneypot tomake it turn, that was too much for her. She rushed up in a great stateof mind and forbade us to touch it. She could not bear the idea of Satanhaving anything to do, even for a moment, with her husband's head-gear. 

In all her actions her reverence for her husband was the one thing thatstood out. The memory of her sweet self-abnegation makes it clear to methat the ultimate perfection of all womanly love is to be found inreverence; that where no extraneous cause has hampered its truedevelopment woman's love naturally grows into worship. Where theappointments of luxury are in profusion, and frivolity tarnishes bothday and night, this love is degraded, and woman's nature finds not thejoy of its perfection. 

I spent some months here. Then it was time for my brother to returnhome, and my father wrote to me to accompany him. I was delighted at theprospect. The light of my country, the sky of my country, had beensilently calling me. When I said good bye Mrs. Scott took me by the handand wept. "Why did you come to us, " she said, "if you must go so soon?"That household no longer exists in London. Some of the members of theDoctor's family have departed to the other world, others are scatteredin places unknown to me. But it will always live in my memory. 

One winter's day, as I was passing through a street in Tunbridge Wells, I saw a man standing on the road side. His bare toes were showingthrough his gaping boots, his breast was partly uncovered. He saidnothing to me, perhaps because begging was forbidden, but he looked upat my face just for a moment. The coin I gave him was perhaps morevaluable than he expected, for, after I had gone on a bit, he came afterme and said: "Sir, you have given me a gold piece by mistake, " withwhich he offered to return it to me. I might not have particularlyremembered this, but for a similar thing which happened on anotheroccasion. When I first reached the Torquay railway station a porter tookmy luggage to the cab outside. After searching my purse for small changein vain, I gave him half-a-crown as the cab started. After a while hecame running after us, shouting to the cabman to stop. I thought tomyself that finding me to be such an innocent he had hit upon someexcuse for demanding more. As the cab stopped he said: "You must havemistaken a half-crown piece for a penny, Sir!"

I cannot say that I have never been cheated while in England, but not inany way which it would be fair to hold in remembrance. What grew chieflyupon me, rather, was the conviction that only those who are trustworthyknow how to trust. I was an unknown foreigner, and could have easilyevaded payment with impunity, yet no London shopkeeper ever mistrustedme. 

During the whole period of my stay in England I was mixed up in afarcical comedy which I had to play out from start to finish. I happenedto get acquainted with the widow of some departed high Anglo-Indianofficial. She was good enough to call me by the pet-name Ruby. SomeIndian friend of hers had composed a doleful poem in English in memoryof her husband. It is needless to expatiate on its poetic merit orfelicity of diction. As my ill-luck would have it, the composer hadindicated that the dirge was to be chanted to the mode _Behaga_. So thewidow one day entreated me to sing it to her thus. Like the sillyinnocent that I was, I weakly acceded. There was unfortunately no onethere but I who could realise the atrociously ludicrous way in which the_Behaga_ mode combined with those absurd verses. The widow seemedintensely touched to hear the Indian's lament for her husband sung toits native melody. I thought that there the matter ended, but that wasnot to be. 

I frequently met the widowed lady at different social gatherings, andwhen after dinner we joined the ladies in the drawing room, she wouldask me to sing that _Behaga_. Everyone else would anticipate someextraordinary specimen of Indian music and would add their entreaties tohers. Then from her pocket would come forth printed copies of thatfateful composition, and my ears begin to redden and tingle. And atlast, with bowed head and quavering voice I would have to make abeginning--but too keenly conscious that to none else in the room but mewas this performance sufficiently heartrending. At the end, amidst muchsuppressed tittering, there would come a chorus of "Thank you verymuch!" "How interesting!" And in spite of its being winter I wouldperspire all over. Who would have predicted at my birth or at his deathwhat a severe blow to me would be the demise of this estimableAnglo-Indian!

Then, for a time, while I was living with Dr. Scott and attendinglectures at the University College, I lost touch with the widow. She wasin a suburban locality some distance away from London, and I frequentlygot letters from her inviting me there. But my dread of that dirge keptme from accepting these invitations. At length I got a pressing telegramfrom her. I was on my way to college when this telegram reached me andmy stay in England was then about to come to its close. I thought tomyself I ought to see the widow once more before my departure, and soyielded to her importunity. 

Instead of coming home from college I went straight to the railwaystation. It was a horrible day, bitterly cold, snowing and foggy. Thestation I was bound for was the terminus of the line. So I felt quiteeasy in mind and did not think it worth while to inquire about the timeof arrival. 

All the station platforms were coming on the right hand side, and in theright hand corner seat I had ensconced myself reading a book. It hadalready become so dark that nothing was visible outside. One by one theother passengers got down at their destinations. We reached and left thestation just before the last one. Then the train stopped again, butthere was nobody to be seen, nor any lights or platform. The merepassenger has no means of divining why trains should sometimes stop atthe wrong times and places, so, giving up the attempt, I went on with myreading. Then the train began to move backwards. There seems to be noaccounting for railway eccentricity, thought I as I once more returnedto my book. But when we came right back to the previous station, I couldremain indifferent no longer. "When are we getting to ----" I inquiredat the station. "You are just coming from there, " was the reply. "Whereare we going now, then?" I asked, thoroughly flurried. "To London. " Ithereupon understood that this was a shuttle train. On inquiring aboutthe next train to ---- I was informed that there were no more trainsthat night. And in reply to my next question I gathered that there wasno inn within five miles. 

I had left home after breakfast at ten in the morning, and had hadnothing since. When abstinence is the only choice, an ascetic frame ofmind comes easy. I buttoned up my thick overcoat to the neck and seatingmyself under a platform lamp went on with my reading. The book I hadwith me was Spencer's _Data of Ethics_, then recently published. Iconsoled myself with the thought that I might never get another suchopportunity of concentrating my whole attention on such a subject. 

After a short time a porter came and informed me that a special wasrunning and would be in in half an hour. I felt so cheered up by thenews that I could not go on any longer with the _Data of Ethics_. WhereI was due at seven I arrived at length at nine. "What is this, Ruby?"asked my hostess. "Whatever have you been doing with yourself?" I wasunable to take much pride in the account of my wonderful adventureswhich I gave her. Dinner was over; nevertheless, as my misfortune washardly my fault, I did not expect condign punishment, especially as thedispenser was a woman. But all that the widow of the high Anglo-Indianofficial said to me was: "Come along, Ruby, have a cup of tea. "

I never was a tea-drinker, but in the hope that it might be of someassistance in allaying my consuming hunger I managed to swallow a cup ofstrong decoction with a couple of dry biscuits. When I at length reachedthe drawing room I found a gathering of elderly ladies and among themone pretty young American who was engaged to a nephew of my hostess andseemed busy going through the usual premarital love passages. 

"Let's have some dancing, " said my hostess. I was neither in the moodnor bodily condition for that exercise. But it is the docile who achievethe most impossible things in this world; so, though the dance wasprimarily got up for the benefit of the engaged couple, I had to dancewith the ladies of considerably advanced age, with only the tea andbiscuits between myself and starvation. 

But my sorrows did not end here. "Where are you putting up for thenight?" asked my hostess. This was a question for which I was notprepared. While I stared at her, speechless, she explained that as thelocal inn would close at midnight I had better betake myself thitherwithout further delay. Hospitality, however, was not entirely wantingfor I had not to find the inn unaided, a servant showing me the waythere with a lantern. At first I thought this might prove a blessing indisguise, and at once proceeded to make inquiries for food: flesh, fishor vegetable, hot or cold, anything! I was told that drinks I could havein any variety but nothing to eat. Then I looked to slumber forforgetfulness, but there seemed to be no room even in herworld-embracing lap. The sand-stone floor of the bed-room was icy cold, an old bedstead and worn-out wash-stand being its only furniture. 

In the morning the Anglo-Indian widow sent for me to breakfast. I founda cold repast spread out, evidently the remnants of last night's dinner. A small portion of this, lukewarm or cold, offered to me last nightcould not have hurt anyone, while my dancing might then have been lesslike the agonised wrigglings of a landed carp. 

After breakfast my hostess informed me that the lady for whosedelectation I had been invited to sing was ill in bed, and that I wouldhave to serenade her from her bed-room door. I was made to stand up onthe staircase landing. Pointing to a closed door the widow said: "That'swhere she is. " And I gave voice to that _Behaga_ dirge facing themysterious unknown on the other side. Of what happened to the invalid asthe result I have yet received no news. 

After my return to London I had to expiate in bed the consequences of myfatuous complaisance. Dr. Scott's girls implored me, on my conscience, not to take this as a sample of English hospitality. It was the effectof India's salt, they protested. 

(26) _Loken Palit_

While I was attending lectures on English literature at the UniversityCollege, Loken Palit was my class fellow. He was about 4 years youngerthan I. At the age I am writing these reminiscences a difference of 4years is not perceptible. But it is difficult for friendship to bridgethe gulf between 17 and 13. Lacking the weight of years the boy isalways anxious to keep up the dignity of seniority. But this did notraise any barrier in my mind in the case of the boy Loken, for I couldnot feel that he was in any way my junior. 

Boy and girl students sat together in the College library for study. This was the place for our tete-a-tete. Had we been fairly quiet aboutit none need have complained, but my young friend was so surcharged withhigh spirits that at the least provocation they would burst forth aslaughter. In all countries girls have a perverse degree of applicationto their studies, and I feel repentant as I recall the multitude ofreproachful blue eyes which vainly showered disapprobation on ourunrestrained merriment. But in those days I felt not the slightestsympathy with the distress of disturbed studiousness. By the grace ofProvidence I have never had a headache in my life, nor a moment ofcompunction for interrupted school studies. 

With our laughter as an almost unbroken accompaniment we managed also todo a bit of literary discussion, and, though Loken's reading of Bengaliliterature was less extensive than mine, he made up for that by thekeenness of his intellect. Among the subjects we discussed was Bengaliorthography. 

The way it arose was this. One of the Scott girls wanted me to teach herBengali. When taking her through the alphabet I expressed my pride thatBengali spelling has a conscience, and does not delight in oversteppingrules at every step. I made clear to her how laughable would have beenthe waywardness of English spelling but for the tragic compulsion wewere under to cram it for our examinations. But my pride had a fall. Ittranspired that Bengali spelling was quite as impatient of bondage, butthat habit had blinded me to its transgressions. 

Then I began to search for the laws regulating its lawlessness. I wasquite surprised at the wonderful assistance which Loken proved to be inthis matter. 

After Loken had got into the Indian Civil Service, and returned home, the work, which had in the University College library had its source inrippling merriment, flowed on in a widening stream. Loken's boisterousdelight in literature was as the wind in the sails of my literaryadventure. And when at the height of my youth I was driving the tandemof prose and poetry at a furious rate, Loken's unstinted appreciationkept my energies from flagging for a moment. Many an extraordinary proseor poetical flight have I taken in his bungalow in the moffussil. Onmany an occasion did our literary and musical gatherings assemble underthe auspices of the evening star to disperse, as did the lamplights atthe breezes of dawn, under the morning star. 

Of the many lotus flowers at _Saraswati's_[43] feet the blossom offriendship must be her favorite. I have not come across much of goldenpollen in her lotus bank, but have nothing to complain of as regards theprofusion of the sweet savour of good-fellowship. 

(27) _The Broken Heart_

While in England I began another poem, which I went on with during myjourney home, and finished after my return. This was published under thename of _Bhagna Hriday_, The Broken Heart. At the time I thought itvery good. There was nothing strange in the writer's thinking so; but itdid not fail to gain the appreciation of the readers of the time aswell. I remember how, after it came out, the chief minister of the lateRaja of Tipperah called on me solely to deliver the message that theRaja admired the poem and entertained high hopes of the writer's futureliterary career. 

About this poem of my eighteenth year let me set down here what I wrotein a letter when I was thirty:

 When I began to write the _Bhagna Hriday_ I was eighteen--neither in my childhood nor my youth. This borderland age is not illumined with the direct rays of Truth;--its reflection is seen here and there, and the rest is shadow. And like twilight shades its imaginings are long-drawn and vague, making the real world seem like a world of phantasy. The curious part of it is that not only was I eighteen, but everyone around me seemed to be eighteen likewise; and we all flitted about in the same baseless, substanceless world of imagination, where even the most intense joys and sorrows seemed like the joys and sorrows of dreamland. There being nothing real to weigh them against, the trivial did duty for the great. 

This period of my life, from the age of fifteen or sixteen to twenty-twoor twenty-three, was one of utter disorderliness. 

When, in the early ages of the Earth, land and water had not yetdistinctly separated, huge misshapen amphibious creatures walked thetrunk-less forests growing on the oozing silt. Thus do the passions ofthe dim ages of the immature mind, as disproportionate and curiouslyshaped, haunt the unending shades of its trackless, namelesswildernesses. They know not themselves, nor the aim of their wanderings;and, because they do not, they are ever apt to imitate something else. So, at this age of unmeaning activity, when my undeveloped powers, unaware of and unequal to their object, were jostling each other for anoutlet, each sought to assert superiority through exaggeration. 

When milk-teeth are trying to push their way through, they work theinfant into a fever. All this agitation finds no justification till theteeth are out and have begun assisting in the absorption of food. In thesame way do our early passions torment the mind, like a malady, tillthey realise their true relationship with the outer world. 

The lessons I learnt from my experiences at that stage are to be foundin every moral text-book, but are not therefore to be despised. Thatwhich keeps our appetites confined within us, and checks their freeaccess to the outside, poisons our life. Such is selfishness whichrefuses to give free play to our desires, and prevents them fromreaching their real goal, and that is why it is always accompanied byfestering untruths and extravagances. When our desires find unlimitedfreedom in good work they shake off their diseased condition and comeback to their own nature;--that is their true end, there also is the joyof their being. 

The condition of my immature mind which I have described was fosteredboth by the example and precept of the time, and I am not sure that theeffects of these are not lingering on to the present day. Glancing backat the period of which I tell, it strikes me that we had gained more ofstimulation than of nourishment out of English Literature. Our literarygods then were Shakespeare, Milton and Byron; and the quality in theirwork which stirred us most was strength of passion. In the social lifeof Englishmen passionate outbursts are kept severely in check, for whichvery reason, perhaps, they so dominate their literature, making itscharacteristic to be the working out of extravagantly vehement feelingsto an inevitable conflagration. At least this uncontrolled excitementwas what we learnt to look on as the quintessence of English literature. 

[Illustration: Moonlight]

In the impetuous declamation of English poetry by Akshay Chowdhury, ourinitiator into English literature, there was the wildness ofintoxication. The frenzy of Romeo's and Juliet's love, the fury of KingLear's impotent lamentation, the all-consuming fire of Othello'sjealousy, these were the things that roused us to enthusiasticadmiration. Our restricted social life, our narrower field of activity, was hedged in with such monotonous uniformity that tempestuous feelingsfound no entrance;--all was as calm and quiet as could be. So our heartsnaturally craved the life-bringing shock of the passionate emotion inEnglish literature. Ours was not the æsthetic enjoyment of literary art, but the jubilant welcome by stagnation of a turbulent wave, even thoughit should stir up to the surface the slime of the bottom. 

Shakespeare's contemporary literature represents the war-dance of theday when the Renascence came to Europe in all the violence of itsreaction against the severe curbing and cramping of the hearts of men. The examination of good and evil, beauty and ugliness, was not the mainobject, --man then seemed consumed with the anxiety to break through allbarriers to the inmost sanctuary of his being, there to discover theultimate image of his own violent desire. That is why in this literaturewe find such poignant, such exuberant, such unbridled expression. 

The spirit of this bacchanalian revelry of Europe found entrance intoour demurely well-behaved social world, woke us up, and made us lively. We were dazzled by the glow of unfettered life which fell upon ourcustom-smothered heart, pining for an opportunity to disclose itself. 

There was another such day in English literature when the slow-measureof Pope's common time gave place to the dance-rhythm of the Frenchrevolution. This had Byron for its poet. And the impetuosity of hispassion also moved our veiled heart-bride in the seclusion of hercorner. 

In this wise did the excitement of the pursuit of English literaturecome to sway the heart of the youth of our time, and at mine the wavesof this excitement kept beating from every side. The first awakening isthe time for the play of energy, not its repression. 

And yet our case was so different from that of Europe. There theexcitability and impatience of bondage was a reflection from its historyinto its literature. Its expression was consistent with its feeling. Theroaring of the storm was heard because a storm was really raging. Thebreeze therefrom that ruffled our little world sounded in reality butlittle above a murmur. Therein it failed to satisfy our minds, so thatour attempts to imitate the blast of a hurricane led us easily intoexaggeration, --a tendency which still persists and may not prove easy ofcure. 

And for this, the fact that in English literature the reticence of trueart has not yet appeared, is responsible. Human emotion is only one ofthe ingredients of literature and not its end, --which is the beauty ofperfect fulness consisting in simplicity and restraint. This is aproposition which English literature does not yet fully admit. 

Our minds from infancy to old age are being moulded by this Englishliterature alone. But other literatures of Europe, both classical andmodern, of which the art-form shows the well-nourished development dueto a systematic cultivation of self-control, are not subjects of ourstudy; and so, as it seems to me, we are yet unable to arrive at acorrect perception of the true aim and method of literary work. 

Akshay Babu, who had made the passion in English literature living tous, was himself a votary of the emotional life. The importance ofrealising truth in the fulness of its perfection seemed less apparent tohim than that of feeling it in the heart. He had no intellectual respectfor religion, but songs of _Shy[=a]m[=a]_, the dark Mother, would bringtears to his eyes. He felt no call to search for ultimate reality;whatever moved his heart served him for the time as the truth, evenobvious coarseness not proving a deterrent. 

Atheism was the dominant note of the English prose writings then invogue, --Bentham, Mill and Comte being favourite authors. Theirs was thereasoning in terms of which our youths argued. The age of Millconstitutes a natural epoch in English History. It represents a healthyreaction of the body politic; these destructive forces having beenbrought in, temporarily, to rid it of accumulated thought-rubbish. Inour country we received these in the letter, but never sought to makepractical use of them, employing them only as a stimulant to inciteourselves to moral revolt. Atheism was thus for us a mere intoxication. 

For these reasons educated men then fell mainly into two classes. Oneclass would be always thrusting themselves forward with unprovokedargumentation to cut to pieces all belief in God. Like the hunter whosehands itch, no sooner he spies a living creature on the top or at thefoot of a tree, to kill it, whenever these came to learn of a harmlessbelief lurking anywhere in fancied security, they felt stirred up tosally forth and demolish it. We had for a short time a tutor of whomthis was a pet diversion. Though I was a mere boy, even I could notescape his onslaughts. Not that his attainments were of any account, orthat his opinions were the result of any enthusiastic search for thetruth, being mostly gathered from others' lips. But though I fought himwith all my strength, unequally matched in age as we were, I sufferedmany a bitter defeat. Sometimes I felt so mortified I almost wanted tocry. 

The other class consisted not of believers, but religious epicureans, who found comfort and solace in gathering together, and steepingthemselves in pleasing sights, sounds and scents galore, under the garbof religious ceremonial; they luxuriated in the paraphernalia ofworship. In neither of these classes was doubt or denial the outcome ofthe travail of their quest. 

Though these religious aberrations pained me, I cannot say I was not atall influenced by them. With the intellectual impudence of budding youththis revolt also found a place. The religious services which were heldin our family I would have nothing to do with, I had not accepted themfor my own. I was busy blowing up a raging flame with the bellows of myemotions. It was only the worship of fire, the giving of oblations toincrease its flame--with no other aim. And because my endeavour had noend in view it was measureless, always reaching beyond any assignedlimit. 

As with religion, so with my emotions, I felt no need for any underlyingtruth, my excitement being an end in itself. I call to mind some linesof a poet of that time:

 My heart is mine I have sold it to none, Be it tattered and torn and worn away, My heart is mine!

From the standpoint of truth the heart need not worry itself so; fornothing compels it to wear itself to tatters. In truth sorrow is notdesirable, but taken apart its pungency may appear savoury. This savourour poets often made much of; leaving out the god in whose worship theywere indulging. This childishness our country has not yet succeeded ingetting rid of. So even to-day, when we fail to see the truth ofreligion, we seek in its observance an artistic gratification. So, also, much of our patriotism is not service of the mother-land, but the luxuryof bringing ourselves into a desirable attitude of mind toward thecountry. 

PART VI

(28) _European Music_

When I was in Brighton I once went to hear some Prima Donna. I forgether name. It may have been Madame Neilson or Madame Albani. Never beforehad I come across such an extraordinary command over the voice. Even ourbest singers cannot hide their sense of effort; nor are they ashamed tobring out, as best they can, top notes or bass notes beyond their properregister. In our country the understanding portion of the audience thinkno harm in keeping the performance up to standard by dint of their ownimagination. For the same reason they do not mind any harshness of voiceor uncouthness of gesture in the exponent of a perfectly formed melody;on the contrary, they seem sometimes to be of opinion that such minorexternal defects serve better to set off the internal perfection of thecomposition, --as with the outward poverty of the Great Ascetic, Mahadeva, whose divinity shines forth naked. 

This feeling seems entirely wanting in Europe. There, outwardembellishment must be perfect in every detail, and the least defectstands shamed and unable to face the public gaze. In our musicalgatherings nothing is thought of spending half-an-hour in tuning up the_Tanpuras_, or hammering into tone the drums, little and big. In Europesuch duties are performed beforehand, behind the scenes, for all thatcomes in front must be faultless. There is thus no room for any weakspot in the singer's voice. In our country a correct and artisticexposition[44] of the melody is the main object, thereon is concentratedall the effort. In Europe the voice is the object of culture, and withit they perform impossibilities. In our country the virtuoso issatisfied if he has heard the song; in Europe, they go to hear thesinger. 

That is what I saw that day in Brighton. To me it was as good as acircus. But, admire the performance as I did, I could not appreciate thesong. I could hardly keep from laughing when some of the _cadenzas_imitated the warbling of birds. I felt all the time that it was amisapplication of the human voice. When it came to the turn of a malesinger I was considerably relieved. I specially liked the tenor voiceswhich had more of human flesh and blood in them, and seemed less likethe disembodied lament of a forlorn spirit. 

After this, as I went on hearing and learning more and more of Europeanmusic, I began to get into the spirit of it; but up to now I amconvinced that our music and theirs abide in altogether differentapartments, and do not gain entry to the heart by the self-same door. 

European music seems to be intertwined with its material life, so thatthe text of its songs may be as various as that life itself. If weattempt to put our tunes to the same variety of use they tend to losetheir significance, and become ludicrous; for our melodies transcend thebarriers of everyday life, and only thus can they carry us so deep intoPity, so high into Aloofness; their function being to reveal a pictureof the inmost inexpressible depths of our being, mysterious andimpenetrable, where the devotee may find his hermitage ready, or eventhe epicurean his bower, but where there is no room for the busy man ofthe world. 

I cannot claim that I gained admittance to the soul of European music. But what little of it I came to understand from the outside attracted megreatly in one way. It seemed to me so romantic. It is somewhatdifficult to analyse what I mean by that word. What I would refer to isthe aspect of variety, of abundance, of the waves on the sea of life, ofthe ever-changing light and shade on their ceaseless undulations. Thereis the opposite aspect--of pure extension, of the unwinking blue of thesky, of the silent hint of immeasureability in the distant circle of thehorizon. However that may be, let me repeat, at the risk of not beingperfectly clear, that whenever I have been moved by European music Ihave said to myself: it is romantic, it is translating into melody theevanescence of life. 

Not that we wholly lack the same attempt in some forms of our music; butit is less pronounced, less successful. Our melodies give voice to thestar-spangled night, to the first reddening of dawn. They speak of thesky-pervading sorrow which lowers in the darkness of clouds; thespeechless deep intoxication of the forest-roaming spring. 

(29) _Valmiki Pratibha_

We had a profusely decorated volume of Moore's Irish Melodies: and oftenhave I listened to the enraptured recitation of these by Akshay Babu. The poems combined with the pictorial designs to conjure up for me adream picture of the Ireland of old. I had not then actually heard theoriginal tunes, but had sung these Irish Melodies to myself to theaccompaniment of the harps in the pictures. I longed to hear the realtunes, to learn them, and sing them to Akshay Babu. Some longingsunfortunately do get fulfilled in this life, and die in the process. When I went to England I did hear some of the Irish Melodies sung, andlearnt them too, but that put an end to my keenness to learn more. Theywere simple, mournful and sweet, but they somehow did not fit in withthe silent melody of the harp which filled the halls of the Old Irelandof my dreams. 

When I came back home I sung the Irish melodies I had learnt to mypeople. "What is the matter with Rabi's voice?" they exclaimed. "Howfunny and foreign it sounds!" They even felt my speaking voice hadchanged its tone. 

From this mixed cultivation of foreign and native melody was born the_Valmiki Pratibha_. [45] The tunes in this musical drama are mostlyIndian, but they have been dragged out of their classic dignity; thatwhich soared in the sky was taught to run on the earth. Those who haveseen and heard it performed will, I trust, bear witness that theharnessing of Indian melodic modes to the service of the drama hasproved neither derogatory nor futile. This conjunction is the onlyspecial feature of _Valmiki Pratibha_. The pleasing task of looseningthe chains of melodic forms and making them adaptable to a variety oftreatment completely engrossed me. 

Several of the songs of _Valmiki Pratibha_ were set to tunes originallyseverely classic in mode; some of the tunes were composed by my brotherJyotirindra; a few were adapted from European sources. The _Telena_[46]style of Indian modes specially lends itself to dramatic purposes andhas been frequently utilized in this work. Two English tunes served forthe drinking songs of the robber band, and an Irish melody for thelament of the wood nymphs. 

_Valmiki Pratibha_ is not a composition which will bear being read. Itssignificance is lost if it is not heard sung and seen acted. It is notwhat Europeans call an Opera, but a little drama set to music. That isto say, it is not primarily a musical composition. Very few of the songsare important or attractive by themselves; they all serve merely as themusical text of the play. 

Before I went to England we occasionally used to have gatherings ofliterary men in our house, at which music, recitations and lightrefreshments were served up. After my return one more such gatheringwas held, which happened to be the last. It was for an entertainment inthis connection that the _Valmiki Pratibha_ was composed. I played_Valmiki_ and my niece, Pratibha, took the part of _Saraswati_--whichbit of history remains recorded in the name. 

I had read in some work of Herbert Spencer's that speech takes ontuneful inflexions whenever emotion comes into play. It is a fact thatthe tone or tune is as important to us as the spoken word for theexpression of anger, sorrow, joy and wonder. Spencer's idea that, through a development of these emotional modulations of voice, man foundmusic, appealed to me. Why should it not do, I thought to myself, to acta drama in a kind of recitative based on this idea. The _Kathakas_[47]of our country attempt this to some extent, for they frequently breakinto a chant which, however, stops short of full melodic form. As blankverse is more elastic than rhymed, so such chanting, though not devoidof rhythm, can more freely adapt itself to the emotional interpretationof the text, because it does not attempt to conform to the more rigorouscanons of tune and time required by a regular melodic composition. Theexpression of feeling being the object, these deficiencies in regard toform do not jar on the hearer. 

Encouraged by the success of this new line taken in the _ValmikiPratibha_, I composed another musical play of the same class. It wascalled the _Kal Mrigaya_, The Fateful Hunt. The plot was based on thestory of the accidental killing of the blind hermit's only son by KingDasaratha. It was played on a stage erected on our roof-terrace, and theaudience seemed profoundly moved by its pathos. Afterwards, much of itwas, with slight changes, incorporated in the _Valmiki Pratibha_, andthis play ceased to be separately published in my works. 

Long afterwards, I composed a third musical play, _Mayar Khela_, thePlay of _Maya_, an operetta of a different type. In this the songs wereimportant, not the drama. In the others a series of dramatic situationswere strung on a thread of melody; this was a garland of songs with justa thread of dramatic plot running through. The play of feeling, and notaction, was its special feature. In point of fact I was, while composingit, saturated with the mood of song. 

The enthusiasm which went to the making of _Valmiki Pratibha_ and _KalMrigaya_ I have never felt for any other work of mine. In these two thecreative musical impulse of the time found expression. 

My brother, Jyotirindra, was engaged the live-long day at his piano, refashioning the classic melodic forms at his pleasure. And, at everyturn of his instrument, the old modes took on unthought-of shapes andexpressed new shades of feeling. The melodic forms which had becomehabituated to their pristine stately gait, when thus compelled to marchto more lively unconventional measures, displayed an unexpected agilityand power; and moved us correspondingly. We could plainly hear the tunesspeak to us while Akshay Babu and I sat on either side fitting words tothem as they grew out of my brother's nimble fingers. I do not claimthat our _libretto_ was good poetry but it served as a vehicle for thetunes. 

In the riotous joy of this revolutionary activity were these two musicalplays composed, and so they danced merrily to every measure, whether ornot technically correct, indifferent as to the tunes being homelike orforeign. 

On many an occasion has the Bengali reading public been grievouslyexercised over some opinion or literary form of mine, but it is curiousto find that the daring with which I had played havoc with acceptedmusical notions did not rouse any resentment; on the contrary those whocame to hear departed pleased. A few of Akshay Babu's compositions findplace in the _Valmiki Pratibha_ and also adaptations from VihariChakravarti's _Sarada Mangal_ series of songs. 

I used to take the leading part in the performance of these musicaldramas. From my early years I had a taste for acting, and firmlybelieved that I had a special aptitude for it. I think I proved that mybelief was not ill-founded. I had only once before done the part ofAleek Babu in a farce written by my brother Jyotirindra. So these werereally my first attempts at acting. I was then very young and nothingseemed to fatigue or trouble my voice. 

In our house, at the time, a cascade of musical emotion was gushingforth day after day, hour after hour, its scattered spray reflectinginto our being a whole gamut of rainbow colours. Then, with thefreshness of youth, our new-born energy, impelled by its virgincuriosity, struck out new paths in every direction. We felt we would tryand test everything, and no achievement seemed impossible. We wrote, wesang, we acted, we poured ourselves out on every side. This was how Istepped into my twentieth year. 

Of these forces which so triumphantly raced our lives along, my brotherJyotirindra was the charioteer. He was absolutely fearless. Once, when Iwas a mere lad, and had never ridden a horse before, he made me mountone and gallop by his side, with no qualms about his unskilledcompanion. When at the same age, while we were at Shelidah, (thehead-quarters of our estate, ) news was brought of a tiger, he took mewith him on a hunting expedition. I had no gun, --it would have been moredangerous to me than to the tiger if I had. We left our shoes at theoutskirts of the jungle and crept in with bare feet. At last wescrambled up into a bamboo thicket, partly stripped of its thorn-liketwigs, where I somehow managed to crouch behind my brother till the deedwas done; with no means of even administering a shoe-beating to theunmannerly brute had he dared lay his offensive paws on me!

Thus did my brother give me full freedom both internal and external inthe face of all dangers. No usage or custom was a bondage for him, andso was he able to rid me of my shrinking diffidence. 

(30) _Evening Songs_

In the state of being confined within myself, of which I have beentelling, I wrote a number of poems which have been grouped together, under the title of the _Heart-Wilderness_, in Mohita Babu's edition ofmy works. In one of the poems subsequently published in a volume called_Morning Songs_, the following lines occur:

 There is a vast wilderness whose name is _Heart_; Whose interlacing forest branches dandle and rock darkness like an infant. I lost my way in its depths. 

from which came the idea of the name for this group of poems. 

Much of what I wrote, when thus my life had no commerce with theoutside, when I was engrossed in the contemplation of my own heart, whenmy imaginings wandered in many a disguise amidst causeless emotions andaimless longings, has been left out of that edition; only a few of thepoems originally published in the volume entitled _Evening Songs_finding a place there, in the _Heart-Wilderness_ group. 

My brother Jyotirindra and his wife had left home travelling on a longjourney, and their rooms on the third storey, facing the terraced-roof, were empty. I took possession of these and the terrace, and spent mydays in solitude. While thus left in communion with my self alone, Iknow not how I slipped out of the poetical groove into which I hadfallen. Perhaps being cut off from those whom I sought to please, andwhose taste in poetry moulded the form I tried to put my thoughts into, I naturally gained freedom from the style they had imposed on me. 

I began to use a slate for my writing. That also helped in myemancipation. The manuscript books in which I had indulged before seemedto demand a certain height of poetic flight, to work up to which I hadto find my way by a comparison with others. But the slate was clearlyfitted for my mood of the moment. "Fear not, " it seemed to say. "Writejust what you please, one rub will wipe all away!"

As I wrote a poem or two, thus unfettered, I felt a great joy well upwithin me. "At last, " said my heart, "what I write is my own!" Let noone mistake this for an accession of pride. Rather did I feel a pride inmy former productions, as being all the tribute I had to pay them. But Irefuse to call the realisation of self, self-sufficiency. The joy ofparents in their first-born is not due to any pride in its appearance, but because it is their very own. If it happens to be an extraordinarychild they may also glory in that--but that is different. 

In the first flood-tide of that joy I paid no heed to the bounds ofmetrical form, and as the stream does not flow straight on but windsabout as it lists, so did my verse. Before, I would have held this to bea crime, but now I felt no compunction. Freedom first breaks the law andthen makes laws which brings it under true Self-rule. 

The only listener I had for these erratic poems of mine was Akshay Babu. When he heard them for the first time he was as surprised as he waspleased, and with his approbation my road to freedom was widened. 

The poems of Vihari Chakravarti were in a 3-beat metre. This triple timeproduces a rounded-off globular effect, unlike the square-cut multipleof 2. It rolls on with ease, it glides as it dances to the tinkling ofits anklets. I was once very fond of this metre. It felt more likeriding a bicycle than walking. And to this stride I had got accustomed. In the _Evening Songs_, without thinking of it, I somehow broke off thishabit. Nor did I come under any other particular bondage. I feltentirely free and unconcerned. I had no thought or fear of being takento task. 

The strength I gained by working, freed from the trammels of tradition, led me to discover that I had been searching in impossible places forthat which I had within myself. Nothing but want of self-confidence hadstood in the way of my coming into my own. I felt like rising from adream of bondage to find myself unshackled. I cut extraordinary capersjust to make sure I was free to move. 

To me this is the most memorable period of my poetic career. As poems my_Evening Songs_ may not have been worth much, in fact as such they arecrude enough. Neither their metre, nor language, nor thought had takendefinite shape. Their only merit is that for the first time I had cometo write what I really meant, just according to my pleasure. What ifthose compositions have no value, that pleasure certainly had. 

(31) _An Essay on Music_

I had been proposing to study for the bar when my father had recalled mehome from England. Some friends concerned at this cutting short of mycareer pressed him to send me off once again. This led to my starting ona second voyage towards England, this time with a relative as mycompanion. My fate, however, had so strongly vetoed my being called tothe bar that I was not even to reach England this time. For a certainreason we had to disembark at Madras and return home to Calcutta. Thereason was by no means as grave as its outcome, but as the laugh was notagainst _me_, I refrain from setting it down here. From both myattempted pilgrimages to _Lakshmi's_[48] shrine I had thus to come backrepulsed. I hope, however, that the Law-god, at least, will look on mewith a favourable eye for that I have not added to the encumbrances onthe Bar-library premises. 

My father was then in the Mussoorie hills. I went to him in fear andtrembling. But he showed no sign of irritation, he rather seemedpleased. He must have seen in this return of mine the blessing of DivineProvidence. 

The evening before I started on this voyage I read a paper at theMedical College Hall on the invitation of the Bethune Society. This wasmy first public reading. The Reverend K. M. Banerji was the president. The subject was Music. Leaving aside instrumental music, I tried to makeout that to bring out better what the words sought to express was thechief end and aim of vocal music. The text of my paper was but meagre. Isang and acted songs throughout illustrating my theme. The only reasonfor the flattering eulogy which the President bestowed on me at the endmust have been the moving effect of my young voice together with theearnestness and variety of its efforts. But I must make the confessionto-day that the opinion I voiced with such enthusiasm that evening waswrong. 

The art of vocal music has its own special functions and features. Andwhen it happens to be set to words the latter must not presume too muchon their opportunity and seek to supersede the melody of which they arebut the vehicle. The song being great in its own wealth, why should itwait upon the words? Rather does it begin where mere words fail. Itspower lies in the region of the inexpressible; it tells us what thewords cannot. 

So the less a song is burdened with words the better. In the classicstyle of Hindustan[49] the words are of no account and leave the melodyto make its appeal in its own way. Vocal music reaches its perfectionwhen the melodic form is allowed to develop freely, and carry ourconsciousness with it to its own wonderful plane. In Bengal, however, the words have always asserted themselves so, that our provincial songhas failed to develop her full musical capabilities, and has remainedcontent as the handmaiden of her sister art of poetry. From the old_Vaishnava_ songs down to those of Nidhu Babu she has displayed hercharms from the background. But as in our country the wife rules herhusband through acknowledging her dependence, so our music, thoughprofessedly in attendance only, ends by dominating the song. 

I have often felt this while composing my songs. As I hummed to myselfand wrote the lines:

 Do not keep your secret to yourself, my love, But whisper it gently to me, only to me. 

I found that the words had no means of reaching by themselves the regioninto which they were borne away by the tune. The melody told me thatthe secret, which I was so importunate to hear, had mingled with thegreen mystery of the forest glades, was steeped in the silent whitenessof moonlight nights, peeped out of the veil of the illimitable bluebehind the horizon--and is the one intimate secret of Earth, Sky andWaters. 

In my early boyhood I heard a snatch of a song:

 Who dressed you, love, as a foreigner?

This one line painted such wonderful pictures in my mind that it hauntsme still. One day I sat down to set to words a composition of my ownwhile full of this bit of song. Humming my tune I wrote to itsaccompaniment:

 I know you, O Woman from the strange land! Your dwelling is across the Sea. 

Had the tune not been there I know not what shape the rest of the poemmight have taken; but the magic of the melody revealed to me thestranger in all her loveliness. It is she, said my soul, who comes andgoes, a messenger to this world from the other shore of the ocean ofmystery. It is she, of whom we now and again catch glimpses in the dewyAutumn mornings, in the scented nights of Spring, in the inmost recessesof our hearts--and sometimes we strain skywards to hear her song. Tothe door of this world-charming stranger the melody, as I say, waftedme, and so to her were the rest of the words addressed. 

Long after this, in a street in Bolpur, a mendicant _Baul_ was singingas he walked along:

 How does the unknown bird flit in and out of the cage! Ah, could I but catch it, I'd ring its feet with my love!

I found this _Baul_ to be saying the very same thing. The unknown birdsometimes surrenders itself within the bars of the cage to whispertidings of the bondless unknown beyond. The heart would fain hold itnear to itself for ever, but cannot. What but the melody of song cantell us of the goings and comings of the unknown bird?

That is why I am always reluctant to publish books of the words ofsongs, for therein the soul must needs be lacking. 

(32) _The River-side_

When I returned home from the outset of my second voyage to England, mybrother Jyotirindra and sister-in-law were living in a river-side villaat Chandernagore, and there I went to stay with them. 

The Ganges again! Again those ineffable days and nights, languid withjoy, sad with longing, attuned to the plaintive babbling of the riveralong the cool shade of its wooded banks. This Bengal sky-full of light, this south breeze, this flow of the river, this right royal laziness, this broad leisure stretching from horizon to horizon and from greenearth to blue sky, all these were to me as food and drink to the hungryand thirsty. Here it felt indeed like home, and in these I recognisedthe ministrations of a Mother. 

That was not so very long ago, and yet time has wrought many changes. Our little river-side nests, clustering under their surroundinggreenery, have been replaced by mills which now, dragon-like, everywhererear their hissing heads, belching forth black smoke. In the middayglare of modern life even our hours of mental siesta have been narroweddown to the lowest limit, and hydra-headed unrest has invaded everydepartment of life. Maybe, this is for the better, but I, for one, cannot account it wholly to the good. 

[Illustration: The Ganges Again]

These lovely days of mine at the riverside passed by like so manydedicated lotus blossoms floating down the sacred stream. Some rainyafternoons I spent in a veritable frenzy, singing away old _Vaishnava_songs to my own tunes, accompanying myself on a harmonium. On otherafternoons, we would drift along in a boat, my brother Jyotirindraaccompanying my singing with his violin. And as, beginning with the_Puravi_, [50] we went on varying the mode of our music with thedeclining day, we saw, on reaching the _Behaga_, [50] the western skyclose the doors of its factory of golden toys, and the moon on the eastrise over the fringe of trees. 

Then we would row back to the landing steps of the villa and seatourselves on a quilt spread on the terrace facing the river. By then asilvery peace rested on both land and water, hardly any boats wereabout, the fringe of trees on the bank was reduced to a deep shadow, andthe moonlight glimmered over the smooth flowing stream. 

The villa we were living in was known as 'Moran's Garden'. A flight ofstone-flagged steps led up from the water to a long, broad verandahwhich formed part of the house. The rooms were not regularly arranged, nor all on the same level, and some had to be reached by short flightsof stairs. The big sitting room overlooking the landing steps hadstained glass windows with coloured pictures. 

One of the pictures was of a swing hanging from a branch half-hidden indense foliage, and in the checkered light and shade of this bower, twopersons were swinging; and there was another of a broad flight of stepsleading into some castle-like palace, up and down which men and womenin festive garb were going and coming. When the light fell on thewindows, these pictures shone wonderfully, seeming to fill theriver-side atmosphere with holiday music. Some far-away long-forgottenrevelry seemed to be expressing itself in silent words of light; thelove thrills of the swinging couple making alive with their eternalstory the woodlands of the river bank. 

The topmost room of the house was in a round tower with windows openingto every side. This I used as my room for writing poetry. Nothing couldbe seen from thence save the tops of the surrounding trees, and the opensky. I was then busy with the _Evening Songs_ and of this room I wrote:

 There, where in the breast of limitless space clouds are laid to sleep, I have built my house for thee, O Poesy!

(33) _More About the Evening Songs_

At this time my reputation amongst literary critics was that of being apoet of broken cadence and lisping utterance. Everything about my workwas dubbed misty, shadowy. However little I might have relished this atthe time, the charge was not wholly baseless. My poetry did in factlack the backbone of worldly reality. How, amidst the ringed-inseclusion of my early years, was I to get the necessary material?

But one thing I refuse to admit. Behind this charge of vagueness was thesting of the insinuation of its being a deliberate affectation--for thesake of effect. The fortunate possessor of good eye-sight is apt tosneer at the youth with glasses, as if he wears them for ornament. Whilea reflection on the poor fellow's infirmity may be permissible, it istoo bad to charge him with pretending not to see. 

The nebula is not an outside creation--it merely represents a phase; andto leave out all poetry which has not attained definiteness would notbring us to the truth of literature. If any phase of man's nature hasfound true expression, it is worth preserving--it may be cast aside onlyif not expressed truly. There is a period in man's life when hisfeelings are the pathos of the inexpressible, the anguish of vagueness. The poetry which attempts its expression cannot be called baseless--atworst it may be worthless; but it is not necessarily even that. The sinis not in the thing expressed, but in the failure to express it. 

There is a duality in man. Of the inner person, behind the outwardcurrent of thoughts, feelings and events, but little is known or recked;but for all that, he cannot be got rid of as a factor in life'sprogress. When the outward life fails to harmonise with the inner, thedweller within is hurt, and his pain manifests itself in the outerconsciousness in a manner to which it is difficult to give a name, oreven to describe, and of which the cry is more akin to an inarticulatewail than words with more precise meaning. 

The sadness and pain which sought expression in the _Evening Songs_ hadtheir roots in the depths of my being. As one's sleep-smotheredconsciousness wrestles with a nightmare in its efforts to awake, so thesubmerged inner self struggles to free itself from its complexities andcome out into the open. These _Songs_ are the history of that struggle. As in all creation, so in poetry, there is the opposition of forces. Ifthe divergence is too wide, or the unison too close, there is, it seemsto me, no room for poetry. Where the pain of discord strives to attainand express its resolution into harmony, there does poetry break forthinto music, as breath through a flute. 

When the _Evening Songs_ first saw the light they were not hailed withany flourish of trumpets, but none the less they did not lack admirers. I have elsewhere told the story of how at the wedding of Mr. RameshChandra Dutt's eldest daughter, Bankim Babu was at the door, and thehost was welcoming him with the customary garland of flowers. As I cameup Bankim Babu eagerly took the garland and placing it round my necksaid: "The wreath to him, Ramesh, have you not read his _EveningSongs_?" And when Mr. Dutt avowed he had not yet done so, the manner inwhich Bankim Babu expressed his opinion of some of them amply rewardedme. 

The _Evening Songs_ gained for me a friend whose approval, like the raysof the sun, stimulated and guided the shoots of my newly sprung efforts. This was Babu Priyanath Sen. Just before this the _Broken Heart_ had ledhim to give up all hopes of me. I won him back with these _EveningSongs_. Those who are acquainted with him know him as an expertnavigator of all the seven seas[51] of literature, whose highways andbyways, in almost all languages, Indian and foreign, he is constantlytraversing. To converse with him is to gain glimpses of even the mostout of the way scenery in the world of ideas. This proved of thegreatest value to me. 

He was able to give his literary opinions with the fullest confidence, for he had not to rely on his unaided taste to guide his likes anddislikes. This authoritative criticism of his also assisted me morethan I can tell. I used to read to him everything I wrote, and but forthe timely showers of his discriminate appreciation it is hard to saywhether these early ploughings of mine would have yielded as they havedone. 

(34) _Morning Songs_

At the river-side I also did a bit of prose writing, not on any definitesubject or plan, but in the spirit that boys catch butterflies. Whenspring comes within, many-coloured short-lived fancies are born and flitabout in the mind, ordinarily unnoticed. In these days of my leisure, itwas perhaps the mere whim to collect them which had come upon me. Or itmay have been only another phase of my emancipated self which had thrownout its chest and decided to write just as it pleased; what I wrote notbeing the object, it being sufficient unto itself that it was I whowrote. These prose pieces were published later under the name of_Vividha Prabandha_, Various Topics, but they expired with the firstedition and did not get a fresh lease of life in a second. 

At this time, I think, I also began my first novel, _Bauthakuranir Hat_. 

After we had stayed for a time by the river, my brother Jyotirindra tooka house in Calcutta, on Sudder Street near the Museum. I remained withhim. While I went on here with the novel and the _Evening Songs_, amomentous revolution of some kind came about within me. 

One day, late in the afternoon, I was pacing the terrace of ourJorasanko house. The glow of the sunset combined with the wan twilightin a way which seemed to give the approaching evening a speciallywonderful attractiveness for me. Even the walls of the adjoining houseseemed to grow beautiful. Is this uplifting of the cover of trivialityfrom the everyday world, I wondered, due to some magic in the eveninglight? Never!

I could see at once that it was the effect of the evening which had comewithin me; its shades had obliterated my _self_. While the self wasrampant during the glare of day, everything I perceived was mingled withand hidden by it. Now, that the self was put into the background, Icould see the world in its own true aspect. And that aspect has nothingof triviality in it, it is full of beauty and joy. 

Since this experience I tried the effect of deliberately suppressing my_self_ and viewing the world as a mere spectator, and was invariablyrewarded with a sense of special pleasure. I remember I tried also toexplain to a relative how to see the world in its true light, and theincidental lightening of one's own sense of burden which follows suchvision; but, as I believe, with no success. 

Then I gained a further insight which has lasted all my life. 

The end of Sudder Street, and the trees on the Free School groundsopposite, were visible from our Sudder Street house. One morning Ihappened to be standing on the verandah looking that way. The sun wasjust rising through the leafy tops of those trees. As I continued togaze, all of a sudden a covering seemed to fall away from my eyes, and Ifound the world bathed in a wonderful radiance, with waves of beauty andjoy swelling on every side. This radiance pierced in a moment throughthe folds of sadness and despondency which had accumulated over myheart, and flooded it with this universal light. 

That very day the poem, _The Awakening of the Waterfall_, gushed forthand coursed on like a veritable cascade. The poem came to an end, butthe curtain did not fall upon the joy aspect of the Universe. And itcame to be so that no person or thing in the world seemed to me trivialor unpleasing. A thing that happened the next day or the day followingseemed specially astonishing. 

There was a curious sort of person who came to me now and then, with ahabit of asking all manner of silly questions. One day he had asked:"Have you, sir, seen God with your own eyes?" And on my having to admitthat I had not, he averred that he had. "What was it you saw?" I asked. "He seethed and throbbed before my eyes!" was the reply. 

It can well be imagined that one would not ordinarily relish being drawninto abstruse discussions with such a person. Moreover, I was at thetime entirely absorbed in my own writing. Nevertheless as he was aharmless sort of fellow I did not like the idea of hurting hissusceptibilities and so tolerated him as best I could. 

This time, when he came one afternoon, I actually felt glad to see him, and welcomed him cordially. The mantle of his oddity and foolishnessseemed to have slipped off, and the person I so joyfully hailed was thereal man whom I felt to be in nowise inferior to myself, and moreoverclosely related. Finding no trace of annoyance within me at sight ofhim, nor any sense of my time being wasted with him, I was filled withan immense gladness, and felt rid of some enveloping tissue of untruthwhich had been causing me so much needless and uncalled for discomfortand pain. 

As I would stand on the balcony, the gait, the figure, the features ofeach one of the passers-by, whoever they might be, seemed to me all soextraordinarily wonderful, as they flowed past, --waves on the sea of theuniverse. From infancy I had seen only with my eyes, I now began to seewith the whole of my consciousness. I could not look upon the sight oftwo smiling youths, nonchalantly going their way, the arm of one on theother's shoulder, as a matter of small moment; for, through it I couldsee the fathomless depths of the eternal spring of Joy from whichnumberless sprays of laughter leap up throughout the world. 

I had never before marked the play of limbs and lineaments which alwaysaccompanies even the least of man's actions; now I was spell-bound bytheir variety, which I came across on all sides, at every moment. Yet Isaw them not as being apart by themselves, but as parts of thatamazingly beautiful greater dance which goes on at this very momentthroughout the world of men, in each of their homes, in theirmultifarious wants and activities. 

Friend laughs with friend, the mother fondles her child, one cow sidlesup to another and licks its body, and the immeasurability behind thesecomes direct to my mind with a shock which almost savours of pain. 

When of this period I wrote:

 I know not how of a sudden my heart flung open its doors, And let the crowd of worlds rush in, greeting each other, --

it was no poetic exaggeration. Rather I had not the power to express allI felt. 

For some time together I remained in this self-forgetful state of bliss. Then my brother thought of going to the Darjeeling hills. So much thebetter, thought I. On the vast Himalayan tops I shall be able to seemore deeply into what has been revealed to me in Sudder Street; at anyrate I shall see how the Himalayas display themselves to my new gift ofvision. 

But the victory was with that little house in Sudder Street. When, afterascending the mountains, I looked around, I was at once aware I had lostmy new vision. My sin must have been in imagining that I could get stillmore of truth from the outside. However sky-piercing the king ofmountains may be, he can have nothing in his gift for me; while He whois the Giver can vouchsafe a vision of the eternal universe in thedingiest of lanes, and in a moment of time. 

I wandered about amongst the firs, I sat near the falls and bathed intheir waters, I gazed at the grandeur of Kinchinjunga through acloudless sky, but in what had seemed to me these likeliest of places, I found _it_ not. I had come to know it, but could see it no longer. While I was admiring the gem the lid had suddenly closed, leaving mestaring at the enclosing casket. But, for all the attractiveness of itsworkmanship, there was no longer any danger of my mistaking it formerely an empty box. 

My _Morning Songs_ came to an end, their last echo dying out with _TheEcho_ which I wrote at Darjeeling. This apparently proved such anabstruse affair that two friends laid a wager as to its real meaning. Myonly consolation was that, as I was equally unable to explain the enigmato them when they came to me for a solution, neither of them had to loseany money over it. Alas! The days when I wrote excessively plain poemsabout _The Lotus_ and _A Lake_ had gone forever. 

But does one write poetry to explain any matter? What is felt within theheart tries to find outside shape as a poem. So when after listening toa poem anyone says he has not understood, I feel nonplussed. If someonesmells a flower and says he does not understand, the reply to him is:there is nothing to understand, it is only a scent. If he persists, saying: _that_ I know, but what does it all _mean_? Then one has eitherto change the subject, or make it more abstruse by saying that thescent is the shape which the universal joy takes in the flower. 

That words have meanings is just the difficulty. That is why the poethas to turn and twist them in metre and verse, so that the meaning maybe held somewhat in check, and the feeling allowed a chance to expressitself. 

This utterance of feeling is not the statement of a fundamental truth, or a scientific fact, or a useful moral precept. Like a tear or a smileit is but a picture of what is taking place within. If Science orPhilosophy may gain anything from it they are welcome, but that is notthe reason of its being. If while crossing a ferry you can catch a fishyou are a lucky man, but that does not make the ferry boat a fishingboat, nor should you abuse the ferryman if he does not make fishing hisbusiness. 

_The Echo_ was written so long ago that it has escaped attention and Iam now no longer called upon to render an account of its meaning. Nevertheless, whatever its other merits or defects may be, I can assuremy readers that it was not my intention to propound a riddle, orinsidiously convey any erudite teaching. The fact of the matter was thata longing had been born within my heart, and, unable to find any othername, I had called the thing I desired an Echo. 

When from the original fount in the depths of the Universe streams ofmelody are sent forth abroad, their echo is reflected into our heartfrom the faces of our beloved and the other beauteous things around us. It must be, as I suggested, this Echo which we love, and not the thingsthemselves from which it happens to be reflected; for that which one daywe scarce deign to glance at, may be, on another, the very thing whichclaims our whole devotion. 

I had so long viewed the world with external vision only, and so hadbeen unable to see its universal aspect of joy. When of a sudden, fromsome innermost depth of my being, a ray of light found its way out, itspread over and illuminated for me the whole universe, which then nolonger appeared like heaps of things and happenings, but was disclosedto my sight as one whole. This experience seemed to tell me of thestream of melody issuing from the very heart of the universe andspreading over space and time, re-echoing thence as waves of joy whichflow right back to the source. 

When the artist sends his song forth from the depths of a full heartthat is joy indeed. And the joy is redoubled when this same song iswafted back to him as hearer. If, when the creation of the Arch-Poet isthus returning back to him in a flood of joy, we allow it to flow overour consciousness, we at once, immediately, become aware, in aninexpressible manner, of the end to which this flood is streaming. Andas we become aware our love goes forth; and our _selves_ are moved fromtheir moorings and would fain float down the stream of joy to itsinfinite goal. This is the meaning of the longing which stirs within usat the sight of Beauty. 

The stream which comes from the Infinite and flows toward thefinite--that is the True, the Good; it is subject to laws, definite inform. Its echo which returns towards the Infinite is Beauty and Joy;which are difficult to touch or grasp, and so make us beside ourselves. This is what I tried to say by way of a parable or a song in _The Echo_. That the result was not clear is not to be wondered at, for neither wasthe attempt then clear unto itself. 

Let me set down here part of what I wrote in a letter, at a moreadvanced age, about the _Morning Songs_. 

 "There is none in the World, all are in my heart"--is a state of mind belonging to a particular age. When the heart is first awakened it puts forth its arms and would grasp the whole world, like the teething infant which thinks everything meant for its mouth. Gradually it comes to understand what it really wants and what it does not. Then do its nebulous emanations shrink upon themselves, get heated, and heat in their turn. 

 To begin by wanting the whole world is to get nothing. When desire is concentrated, with the whole strength of one's being upon any one object whatsoever it might be, then does the gateway to the Infinite become visible. The morning songs were the first throwing forth of my inner self outwards, and consequently they lack any signs of such concentration. 

This all-pervading joy of a first outflow, however, has the effect ofleading us to an acquaintance with the particular. The lake in itsfulness seeks an outlet as a river. In this sense the permanent laterlove is narrower than first love. It is more definite in the directionof its activities, desires to realise the whole in each of its parts, and is thus impelled on towards the infinite. What it finally reaches isno longer the former indefinite extension of the heart's own inner joy, but a merging in the infinite reality which was outside itself, andthereby the attainment of the complete truth of its own longings. 

In Mohita Babu's edition these _Morning Songs_ have been placed in thegroup of poems entitled _Nishkraman_, The Emergence. For in these was tobe found the first news of my coming out of the _Heart Wilderness_ intothe open world. Thereafter did this pilgrim heart make its acquaintancewith that world, bit by bit, part by part, in many a mood and manner. And at the end, after gliding past all the numerous landing steps ofever-changing impermanence, it will reach the infinite, --not thevagueness of indeterminate possibility, but the consummation of perfectfulness of Truth. 

From my earliest years I enjoyed a simple and intimate communion withNature. Each one of the cocoanut trees in our garden had for me adistinct personality. When, on coming home from the Normal School, I sawbehind the skyline of our roof-terrace blue-grey water-laden cloudsthickly banked up, the immense depth of gladness which filled me, all ina moment, I can recall clearly even now. On opening my eyes everymorning, the blithely awakening world used to call me to join it like aplaymate; the perfervid noonday sky, during the long silent watches ofthe siesta hours, would spirit me away from the work-a-day world intothe recesses of its hermit cell; and the darkness of night would openthe door to its phantom paths, and take me over all the seven seas andthirteen rivers, past all possibilities and impossibilities, right intoits wonder-land. 

Then one day, when, with the dawn of youth, my hungry heart began to cryout for its sustenance, a barrier was set up between this play of insideand outside. And my whole being eddied round and round my troubledheart, creating a vortex within itself, in the whirls of which itsconsciousness was confined. 

This loss of the harmony between inside and outside, due to theover-riding claims of the heart in its hunger, and consequentrestriction of the privilege of communion which had been mine, wasmourned by me in the _Evening Songs_. In the _Morning Songs_ Icelebrated the sudden opening of a gate in the barrier, by what shock Iknow not, through which I regained the lost one, not only as I knew itbefore, but more deeply, more fully, by force of the interveningseparation. 

Thus did the First Book of my life come to an end with these chapters ofunion, separation and reunion. Or, rather, it is not true to say it hascome to an end. The same subject has still to be continued through moreelaborate solutions of worse complexities, to a greater conclusion. Eachone comes here to finish but one book of life, which, during theprogress of its various parts, grows spiral-wise on an ever-increasingradius. So, while each segment may appear different from the others at acursory glance, they all really lead back to the self-same startingcentre. 

The prose writings of the _Evening Songs_ period were published, as Ihave said, under the name of _Vividha Prabandha_. Those others whichcorrespond to the time of my writing the _Morning Songs_ came out underthe title of _Alochana_, Discussions. The difference between thecharacteristics of these two would be a good index of the nature of thechange that had in the meantime taken place within me. 

PART VII

(35) _Rajendrahal Mitra_

It was about this time that my brother Jyotirindra had the idea offounding a Literary Academy by bringing together all the men of lettersof repute. To compile authoritative technical terms for the Bengalilanguage and in other ways to assist in its growth was to be itsobject--therein differing but little from the lines on which the modern_Sahitya Parishat_, Academy of Literature, has taken shape. 

Dr. Rajendrahal Mitra took up the idea of this Academy with enthusiasm, and he was eventually its president for the short time it lasted. When Iwent to invite Pandit Vidyasagar to join it, he gave a hearing to myexplanation of its objects and the names of the proposed members, thensaid: "My advice to you is to leave us out--you will never accomplishanything with big wigs; they can never be got to agree with oneanother. " With which he refused to come in. Bankim Babu became a member, but I cannot say that he took much interest in the work. 

To be plain, so long as this academy lived Rajendrahal Mitra dideverything single-handed. He began with Geographical terms. The draftlist was made out by Dr. Rajendrahal himself and was printed andcirculated for the suggestions of the members. We had also an idea oftransliterating in Bengali the name of each foreign country aspronounced by itself. 

Pandit Vidyasagar's prophecy was fulfilled. It did not prove possible toget the big wigs to do anything. And the academy withered away shortlyafter sprouting. But Rajendrahal Mitra was an all-round expert and wasan academy in himself. My labours in this cause were more than repaid bythe privilege of his acquaintance. I have met many Bengali men ofletters in my time but none who left the impression of such brilliance. 

I used to go and see him in the office of the Court of Wards inManiktala. I would go in the mornings and always find him busy with hisstudies, and with the inconsiderateness of youth, I felt no hesitationin disturbing him. But I have never seen him the least bit put out onthat account. As soon as he saw me he would put aside his work and beginto talk to me. It is a matter of common knowledge that he was somewhathard of hearing, so he hardly ever gave me occasion to put him anyquestion. He would take up some broad subject and talk away upon it, andit was the attraction of these discourses which drew me there. Conversewith no other person ever gave me such a wealth of suggestive ideas onso many different subjects. I would listen enraptured. 

I think he was a member of the text-book committee and every book hereceived for approval, he read through and annotated in pencil. On someoccasions he would select one of these books for the text of discourseson the construction of the Bengali language in particular or Philologyin general, which were of the greatest benefit to me. There were fewsubjects which he had not studied and anything he had studied he couldclearly expound. 

If we had not relied on the other members of the Academy we had tried tofound, but left everything to Dr. Rajendrahal, the present _SahityaParishat_ would have doubtless found the matters it is now occupied withleft in a much more advanced state by that one man alone. 

Dr. Rajendrahal Mitra was not only a profound scholar, but he hadlikewise a striking personality which shone through his features. Fullof fire as he was in his public life, he could also unbend graciously soas to talk on the most difficult subjects to a stripling like myselfwithout any trace of a patronising tone. I even took advantage of hiscondescension to the extent of getting a contribution, _Yama's Dog_, from him for the Bharabi. There were other great contemporaries of hiswith whom I would not have ventured to take such liberties, nor would Ihave met with the like response if I had. 

And yet when he was on the war path his opponents on the MunicipalCorporation or the Senate of the University were mortally afraid of him. In those days Kristo Das Pal was the tactful politician, and RajendrahalMitra the valiant fighter. 

For the purposes of the Asiatic Society's publications and researches, he had to employ a number of Sanscrit Pandits to do the mechanical workfor him. I remember how this gave certain envious and mean-mindeddetractors the opportunity of saying that everything was really done bythese Pandits while Rajendrahal fraudulently appropriated all thecredit. Even to-day we very often find the tools arrogating tothemselves the lion's share of the achievement, imagining the wielder tobe a mere ornamental figurehead. If the poor pen had a mind it would ascertainly have bemoaned the unfairness of its getting all the stain andthe writer all the glory!

It is curious that this extraordinary man should have got no recognitionfrom his countrymen even after his death. One of the reasons may be thatthe national mourning for Vidyasagar, whose death followed shortlyafter, left no room for a recognition of the other bereavement. Another reason may be that his main contributions being outside the paleof Bengali literature, he had been unable to reach the heart of thepeople. 

(36) _Karwar_

Our Sudder Street party next transferred itself to Karwar on the WestSea coast. Karwar is the headquarters of the Kanara district in theSouthern portion of the Bombay Presidency. It is the tract of the MalayaHills of Sanskrit literature where grow the cardamum creeper and theSandal Tree. My second brother was then Judge there. 

The little harbour, ringed round with hills, is so secluded that it hasnothing of the aspect of a port about it. Its crescent shaped beachthrows out its arms to the shoreless open sea like the very image of aneager striving to embrace the infinite. The edge of the broad sandybeach is fringed with a forest of casuarinas, broken at one end by the_Kalanadi_ river which here flows into the sea after passing through agorge flanked by rows of hills on either side. 

I remember how one moonlit evening we went up this river in a littleboat. We stopped at one of Shivaji's old hill forts, and steppingashore found our way into the clean-swept little yard of a peasant'shome. We sat on a spot where the moonbeams fell glancing off the top ofthe outer enclosure, and there dined off the eatables we had broughtwith us. On our way back we let the boat glide down the river. The nightbrooded over the motionless hills and forests, and on the silent flowingstream of this little _Kalanadi_, throwing over all its moonlight spell. It took us a good long time to reach the mouth of the river, so, insteadof returning by sea, we got off the boat there and walked back home overthe sands of the beach. It was then far into the night, the sea waswithout a ripple, even the ever-troubled murmur of the casuarinas was atrest. The shadow of the fringe of trees along the vast expanse of sandhung motionless along its border, and the ring of blue-grey hills aroundthe horizon slept calmly beneath the sky. 

[Illustration: Karwar Beach]

Through the deep silence of this illimitable whiteness we few humancreatures walked along with our shadows, without a word. When we reachedhome my sleep had lost itself in something still deeper. The poem whichI then wrote is inextricably mingled with that night on the distantseashore. I do not know how it will appeal to the reader apart from thememories with which it is entwined. This doubt led to its being leftout of Mohita Babu's edition of my works. I trust that a place given toit among my reminiscences may not be deemed unfitting. 

 Let me sink down, losing myself in the depths of midnight. Let the Earth leave her hold of me, let her free me from her obstacle of dust. Keep your watch from afar, O stars, drunk though you be with moonlight, And let the horizon hold its wings still around me. Let there be no song, no word, no sound, no touch; nor sleep, nor awakening, -- But only the moonlight like a swoon of ecstasy over the sky and my being. The world seems to me like a ship with its countless pilgrims, Vanishing in the far-away blue of the sky, Its sailors' song becoming fainter and fainter in the air, While I sink in the bosom of the endless night, fading away from myself, dwindling into a point. 

It is necessary to remark here that merely because something has beenwritten when feelings are brimming over, it is not therefore necessarilygood. Such is rather a time when the utterance is thick with emotion. Just as it does not do to have the writer entirely removed from thefeeling to which he is giving expression, so also it does not conduceto the truest poetry to have him too close to it. Memory is the brushwhich can best lay on the true poetic colour. Nearness has too much ofthe compelling about it and the imagination is not sufficiently freeunless it can get away from its influence. Not only in poetry, but inall art, the mind of the artist must attain a certain degree ofaloofness--the _creator_ within man must be allowed the sole control. Ifthe subject matter gets the better of the creation, the result is a merereplica of the event, not a reflection of it through the Artist's mind. 

(37) _Nature's Revenge_

Here in Karwar I wrote the _Prakritir Pratishodha_, Nature's Revenge, adramatic poem. The hero was a Sanyasi (hermit) who had been striving togain a victory over Nature by cutting away the bonds of all desires andaffections and thus to arrive at a true and profound knowledge of self. A little girl, however, brought him back from his communion with theinfinite to the world and into the bondage of human affection. On socoming back the _Sanyasi_ realised that the great is to be found in thesmall, the infinite within the bounds of form, and the eternal freedomof the soul in love. It is only in the light of love that all limitsare merged in the limitless. 

The sea beach of Karwar is certainly a fit place in which to realisethat the beauty of Nature is not a mirage of the imagination, butreflects the joy of the Infinite and thus draws us to lose ourselves init. Where the universe is expressing itself in the magic of its laws itmay not be strange if we miss its infinitude; but where the heart getsinto immediate touch with immensity in the beauty of the meanest ofthings, is any room left for argument?

Nature took the _Sanyasi_ to the presence of the Infinite, enthroned onthe finite, by the pathway of the heart. In the _Nature's Revenge_ therewere shown on the one side the wayfarers and the villagers, content withtheir home-made triviality and unconscious of anything beyond; and onthe other the _Sanyasi_ busy casting away his all, and himself, into theself-evolved infinite of his imagination. When love bridged the gulfbetween the two, and the hermit and the householder met, the seemingtriviality of the finite and the seeming emptiness of the infinite alikedisappeared. 

This was to put in a slightly different form the story of my ownexperience, of the entrancing ray of light which found its way into thedepths of the cave into which I had retired away from all touch withthe outer world, and made me more fully one with Nature again. This_Nature's Revenge_ may be looked upon as an introduction to the whole ofmy future literary work; or, rather this has been the subject on whichall my writings have dwelt--the joy of attaining the Infinite within thefinite. 

On our way back from Karwar I wrote some songs for the _Nature'sRevenge_ on board ship. The first one filled me with a great gladness asI sang, and wrote it sitting on the deck:

 Mother, leave your darling boy to us, And let us take him to the field where we graze our cattle. [52]

The sun has risen, the buds have opened, the cowherd boys are going tothe pasture; and they would not have the sunlight, the flowers, andtheir play in the grazing grounds empty. They want their _Shyam_(Krishna) to be with them there, in the midst of all these. They want tosee the Infinite in all its carefully adorned loveliness; they haveturned out so early because they want to join in its gladsome play, inthe midst of these woods and fields and hills and dales--not to admirefrom a distance, nor in the majesty of power. Their equipment is of theslightest. A simple yellow garment and a garland of wild-flowers are allthe ornaments they require. For where joy reigns on every side, to huntfor it arduously, or amidst pomp and circumstances, is to lose it. 

Shortly after my return from Karwar, I was married. I was then 22 yearsof age. 

(38) _Pictures and Songs_

_Chhabi o Gan_, Picture and Songs, was the title of a book of poems mostof which were written at this time. 

We were then living in a house with a garden in Lower Circular Road. Adjoining it on the south was a large _Busti_. [53] I would often sitnear a window and watch the sights of this populous little settlement. Iloved to see them at their work and play and rest, and in theirmultifarious goings and comings. To me it was all like a living story. 

A faculty of many-sightedness possessed me at this time. Each littleseparate picture I ringed round with the light of my imagination and thejoy of my heart; every one of them, moreover, being variously colouredby a pathos of its own. The pleasure of thus separately marking off eachpicture was much the same as that of painting it, both being the outcomeof the desire to see with the mind what the eye sees, and with the eyewhat the mind imagines. 

Had I been a painter with the brush I would doubtless have tried to keepa permanent record of the visions and creations of that period when mymind was so alertly responsive. But that instrument was not available tome. What I had was only words and rhythms, and even with these I had notyet learnt to draw firm strokes, and the colours went beyond theirmargins. Still, like young folk with their first paint box, I spent thelivelong day painting away with the many coloured fancies of my new-bornyouth. If these pictures are now viewed in the light of thattwenty-second year of my life, some features may be discerned eventhrough their crude drawing and blurred colouring. 

I have said that the first book of my literary life came to an end withthe _Morning Songs_. The same subject was then continued under adifferent rendering. Many a page at the outset of this Book, I am sure, is of no value. In the process of making a new beginning much in the wayof superfluous preliminary has to be gone through. Had these been leavesof trees they would have duly dropped off. Unfortunately, leaves ofbooks continue to stick fast even when they are no longer wanted. Thefeature of these poems was the closeness of attention devoted even totrifling things. _Pictures and Songs_ seized every opportunity of givingvalue to these by colouring them with feelings straight from the heart. 

Or, rather, that was not it. When the string of the mind is properlyattuned to the universe then at each point the universal song can awakenits sympathetic vibrations. It was because of this music roused withinthat nothing then felt trivial to the writer. Whatever my eyes fell uponfound a response within me. Like children who can play with sand orstones or shells or whatever they can get (for the spirit of play iswithin them), so also we, when filled with the song of youth, becomeaware that the harp of the universe has its variously tuned stringseverywhere stretched, and the nearest may serve as well as any other forour accompaniment, there is no need to seek afar. 

(39) _An Intervening Period_

Between the _Pictures and Songs_ and the _Sharps and Flats_, a child'smagazine called the _Balaka_ sprang up and ended its brief days like anannual plant. My second sister-in-law felt the want of an illustratedmagazine for children. Her idea was that the young people of the familywould contribute to it, but as she felt that that alone would not beenough, she took up the editorship herself and asked me to help withcontributions. After one or two numbers of the _Balaka_ had come out Ihappened to go on a visit to Rajnarayan Babu at Deoghur. On the returnjourney the train was crowded and as there was an unshaded light justover the only berth I could get, I could not sleep. I thought I might aswell take this opportunity of thinking out a story for the _Balaka_. Inspite of my efforts to get hold of the story it eluded me, but sleepcame to the rescue instead. I saw in a dream the stone steps of a templestained with the blood of victims of the sacrifice;--a little girlstanding there with her father asking him in piteous accents: "Father, what is this, why all this blood?" and the father, inwardly moved, trying with a show of gruffness to quiet her questioning. As I awoke Ifelt I had got my story. I have many more such dream-given stories andother writings as well. This dream episode I worked into the annals ofKing Gobinda Manikya of Tipperah and made out of it a little serialstory, _Rajarshi_, for the _Balaka_. 

Those were days of utter freedom from care. Nothing in particular seemedto be anxious to express itself through my life or writings. I had notyet joined the throng of travellers on the path of Life, but was a merespectator from my roadside window. Many a person hied by on many anerrand as I gazed on, and every now and then Spring or Autumn, or theRains would enter unasked and stay with me for a while. 

But I had not only to do with the seasons. There were men of all kindsof curious types who, floating about like boats adrift from theiranchorage, occasionally invaded my little room. Some of them sought tofurther their own ends, at the cost of my inexperience, with many anextraordinary device. But they need not have taken any extraordinarypains to get the better of me. I was then entirely unsophisticated, myown wants were few, and I was not at all clever in distinguishingbetween good and bad faith. I have often gone on imagining that I wasassisting with their school fees students to whom fees were assuperfluous as their unread books. 

Once a long-haired youth brought me a letter from an imaginary sister inwhich she asked me to take under my protection this brother of hers whowas suffering from the tyranny of a stepmother as imaginary as herself. The brother was not imaginary, that was evident enough. But his sister'sletter was as unnecessary for me as expert marksmanship to bring down abird which cannot fly. 

Another young fellow came and informed me that he was studying for theB. A. , but could not go up for his examination as he was afflicted withsome brain trouble. I felt concerned, but being far from proficient inmedical science, or in any other science, I was at a loss what advice togive him. But he went on to explain that he had seen in a dream that mywife had been his mother in a former birth, and that if he could butdrink some water which had touched her feet he would get cured. "Perhapsyou don't believe in such things, " he concluded with a smile. My belief, I said, did not matter, but if he thought he could get cured, he waswelcome, with which I procured him a phial of water which was supposedto have touched my wife's feet. He felt immensely better, he said. Inthe natural course of evolution from water he came to solid food. Thenhe took up his quarters in a corner of my room and began to holdsmoking parties with his friends, till I had to take refuge in flightfrom the smoke laden air. He gradually proved beyond doubt that hisbrain might have been diseased, but it certainly was not weak. 

After this experience it took no end of proof before I could bringmyself to put my trust in children of previous births. My reputationmust have spread for I next received a letter from a daughter. Here, however, I gently but firmly drew the line. 

All this time my friendship with Babu Srish Chandra Magundar ripenedapace. Every evening he and Prija Babu would come to this little room ofmine and we would discuss literature and music far into the night. Sometimes a whole day would be spent in the same way. The fact is my_self_ had not yet been moulded and nourished into a strong and definitepersonality and so my life drifted along as light and easy as an autumncloud. 

(40) _Bankim Chandra_

This was the time when my acquaintance with Bankim Babu began. My firstsight of him was a matter of long before. The old students of CalcuttaUniversity had then started an annual reunion, of which Babu ChandranathBasu was the leading spirit. Perhaps he entertained a hope that at somefuture time I might acquire the right to be one of them; anyhow I wasasked to read a poem on the occasion. Chandranath Babu was then quite ayoung man. I remember he had translated some martial German poem intoEnglish which he proposed to recite himself on the day, and came torehearse it to us full of enthusiasm. That a warrior poet's ode to hisbeloved sword should at one time have been his favourite poem willconvince the reader that even Chandranath Babu was once young; andmoreover that those times were indeed peculiar. 

While wandering about in the crush at the Students' reunion, I suddenlycame across a figure which at once struck me as distinguished beyondthat of all the others and who could not have possibly been lost in anycrowd. The features of that tall fair personage shone with such astriking radiance that I could not contain my curiosity about him--hewas the only one there whose name I felt concerned to know that day. When I learnt he was Bankim Babu I marvelled all the more, it seemed tome such a wonderful coincidence that his appearance should be asdistinguished as his writings. His sharp aquiline nose, his compressedlips, and his keen glance all betokened immense power. With his armsfolded across his breast he seemed to walk as one apart, towering abovethe ordinary throng--this is what struck me most about him. Not onlythat he looked an intellectual giant, but he had on his forehead themark of a true prince among men. 

One little incident which occurred at this gathering remains indeliblyimpressed on my mind. In one of the rooms a Pandit was reciting someSanskrit verses of his own composition and explaining them in Bengali tothe audience. One of the allusions was not exactly coarse, but somewhatvulgar. As the Pandit was proceeding to expound this Bankim Babu, covering his face with his hands, hurried out of the room. I was nearthe door and can still see before me that shrinking, retreating figure. 

After that I often longed to see him, but could not get an opportunity. At last one day, when he was Deputy Magistrate of Hawrah, I made bold tocall on him. We met, and I tried my best to make conversation. But Isomehow felt greatly abashed while returning home, as if I had actedlike a raw and bumptious youth in thus thrusting myself upon him unaskedand unintroduced. 

Shortly after, as I added to my years, I attained a place as theyoungest of the literary men of the time; but what was to be my positionin order of merit was not even then settled. The little reputation Ihad acquired was mixed with plenty of doubt and not a little ofcondescension. It was then the fashion in Bengal to assign each man ofletters a place in comparison with a supposed compeer in the West. Thusone was the Byron of Bengal, another the Emerson and so forth. I beganto be styled by some the Bengal Shelley. This was insulting to Shelleyand only likely to get me laughed at. 

My recognised cognomen was the Lisping Poet. My attainments were few, myknowledge of life meagre, and both in my poetry and my prose thesentiment exceeded the substance. So that there was nothing there onwhich anyone could have based his praise with any degree of confidence. My dress and behaviour were of the same anomalous description. I wore myhair long and indulged probably in an ultra-poetical refinement ofmanner. In a word I was eccentric and could not fit myself into everydaylife like the ordinary man. 

At this time Babu Akshay Sarkar had started his monthly review, the_Nabajiban_, New Life, to which I used occasionally to contribute. Bankim Babu had just closed the chapter of his editorship of the _BangaDarsan_, the Mirror of Bengal, and was busy with religious discussionsfor which purpose he had started the monthly, _Prachar_, the Preacher. To this also I contributed a song or two and an effusive appreciationof _Vaishnava_ lyrics. 

From now I began constantly to meet Bankim Babu. He was then living inBhabani Dutt's street. I used to visit him frequently, it is true, butthere was not much of conversation. I was then of the age to listen, notto talk. I fervently wished we could warm up into some discussion, butmy diffidence got the better of my conversational powers. Some daysSanjib Babu[54] would be there reclining on his bolster. The sight wouldgladden me, for he was a genial soul. He delighted in talking and it wasa delight to listen to his talk. Those who have read his prose writingmust have noticed how gaily and airily it flows on like the sprightliestof conversation. Very few have this gift of conversation, and fewerstill the art of translating it into writing. 

This was the time when Pandit Sashadhar rose into prominence. Of him Ifirst heard from Bankim Babu. If I remember right Bankim Babu was alsoresponsible for introducing him to the public. The curious attempt madeby Hindu orthodoxy to revive its prestige with the help of westernscience soon spread all over the country. Theosophy for some timepreviously had been preparing the ground for such a movement. Not thatBankim Babu even thoroughly identified himself with this cult. No shadowof Sashadhar was cast on his exposition of Hinduism as it foundexpression in the _Prachar_--that was impossible. 

I was then coming out of the seclusion of my corner as my contributionsto these controversies will show. Some of these were satirical verses, some farcical plays, others letters to newspapers. I thus came down intothe arena from the regions of sentiment and began to spar in rightearnest. 

In the heat of the fight I happened to fall foul of Bankim Babu. Thehistory of this remains recorded in the _Prachar_ and _Bharati_ of thosedays and need not be repeated here. At the close of this period ofantagonism Bankim Babu wrote me a letter which I have unfortunatelylost. Had it been here the reader could have seen with what consummategenerosity Bankim Babu had taken the sting out of that unfortunateepisode. 

PART VIII

(41) _The Steamer Hulk_

Lured by an advertisement in some paper my brother Jyotirindra went offone afternoon to an auction sale, and on his return informed us that hehad bought a steel hulk for seven thousand rupees; all that now remainedbeing to put in an engine and some cabins for it to become afull-fledged steamer. 

My brother must have thought it a great shame that our countrymen shouldhave their tongues and pens going, but not a single line of steamers. AsI have narrated before, he had tried to light matches for his country, but no amount of rubbing availed to make them strike. He had also wantedpower-looms to work, but after all his travail only one little countrytowel was born, and then the loom stopped. And now that he wanted Indiansteamers to ply, he bought an empty old hulk, which in due course, wasfilled, not only with engines and cabins, but with loss and ruin aswell. And yet we should remember that all the loss and hardship due tohis endeavours fell on him alone, while the gain of experience remainedin reserve for the whole country. It is these uncalculating, unbusinesslike spirits who keep the business-fields of the countryflooded with their activities. And, though the flood subsides as rapidlyas it comes, it leaves behind fertilising silt to enrich the soil. Whenthe time for reaping arrives no one thinks of these pioneers; but thosewho have cheerfully staked and lost their all, during life, are notlikely, after death, to mind this further loss of being forgotten. 

On one side was the European Flotilla Company, on the other my brotherJyotirindra alone; and how tremendous waxed that battle of themercantile fleets, the people of Khulna and Barisal may still remember. Under the stress of competition steamer was added to steamer, loss piledon loss, while the income dwindled till it ceased to be worth while toprint tickets. The golden age dawned on the steamer service betweenKhulna and Barisal. Not only were the passengers carried free of charge, but they were offered light refreshments _gratis_ as well! Then wasformed a band of volunteers who, with flags and patriotic songs, marchedthe passengers in procession to the Indian line of steamers. So whilethere was no want of passengers to carry, every other kind of want beganto multiply apace. 

[Illustration: My Brother Jyotirindra]

Arithmetic remained uninfluenced by patriotic fervour; and whileenthusiasm flamed higher and higher to the tune of patriotic songs, three times three went on steadily making nine on the wrong side ofthe balance sheet. 

One of the misfortunes which always pursues the unbusinesslike is that, while they are as easy to read as an open book, they never learn to readthe character of others. And since it takes them the whole of theirlifetime and all their resources to find out this weakness of theirs, they never get the chance of profiting by experience. While thepassengers were having free refreshments, the staff showed no signs ofbeing starved either, but nevertheless the greatest gain remained withmy brother in the ruin he so valiantly faced. 

The daily bulletins of victory or disaster which used to arrive from thetheatre of action kept us in a fever of excitement. Then one day camethe news that the steamer _Swadeshi_ had fouled the Howrah bridge andsunk. With this last loss my brother completely overstepped the limitsof his resources, and there was nothing for it but to wind up thebusiness. 

(42) _Bereavements_

In the meantime death made its appearance in our family. Before this, Ihad never met Death face to face. When my mother died I was quite achild. She had been ailing for quite a long time, and we did not evenknow when her malady had taken a fatal turn. She used all along to sleepon a separate bed in the same room with us. Then in the course of herillness she was taken for a boat trip on the river, and on her return aroom on the third storey of the inner apartments was set apart for her. 

On the night she died we were fast asleep in our room downstairs. Atwhat hour I cannot tell, our old nurse came running in weeping andcrying: "O my little ones, you have lost your all!" My sister-in-lawrebuked her and led her away, to save us the sudden shock at dead ofnight. Half awakened by her words, I felt my heart sink within me, butcould not make out what had happened. When in the morning we were toldof her death, I could not realize all that it meant for me. 

As we came out into the verandah we saw my mother laid on a bedstead inthe courtyard. There was nothing in her appearance which showed death tobe terrible. The aspect which death wore in that morning light was aslovely as a calm and peaceful sleep, and the gulf between life and itsabsence was not brought home to us. 

Only when her body was taken out by the main gateway, and we followedthe procession to the cremation ground, did a storm of grief passthrough me at the thought that mother would never return by this doorand take again her accustomed place in the affairs of her household. Theday wore on, we returned from the cremation, and as we turned into ourlane I looked up at the house towards my father's rooms on the thirdstorey. He was still in the front verandah sitting motionless in prayer. 

She who was the youngest daughter-in-law of the house took charge of themotherless little ones. She herself saw to our food and clothing and allother wants, and kept us constantly near, so that we might not feel ourloss too keenly. One of the characteristics of the living is the powerto heal the irreparable, to forget the irreplaceable. And in early lifethis power is strongest, so that no blow penetrates too deeply, no scaris left permanently. Thus the first shadow of death which fell on usleft no darkness behind; it departed as softly as it came, only ashadow. 

When, in later life, I wandered about like a madcap, at the first comingof spring, with a handful of half-blown jessamines tied in a corner ofmy muslin scarf, and as I stroked my forehead with the soft, rounded, tapering buds, the touch of my mother's fingers would come back to me;and I clearly realised that the tenderness which dwelt in the tips ofthose lovely fingers was the very same as that which blossoms every dayin the purity of these jessamine buds; and that whether we know it ornot, this tenderness is on the earth in boundless measure. 

The acquaintance which I made with Death at the age of twenty-four was apermanent one, and its blow has continued to add itself to eachsucceeding bereavement in an ever lengthening chain of tears. Thelightness of infant life can skip aside from the greatest of calamities, but with age evasion is not so easy, and the shock of that day I had totake full on my breast. 

That there could be any gap in the unbroken procession of the joys andsorrows of life was a thing I had no idea of. I could therefore seenothing beyond, and this life I had accepted as all in all. When of asudden death came and in a moment made a gaping rent in itssmooth-seeming fabric, I was utterly bewildered. All around, the trees, the soil, the water, the sun, the moon, the stars, remained as immovablytrue as before; and yet the person who was as truly there, who, througha thousand points of contact with life, mind, and heart, was ever somuch more true for me, had vanished in a moment like a dream. Whatperplexing self-contradiction it all seemed to me as I looked around!How was I ever to reconcile that which remained with that which hadgone?

The terrible darkness which was disclosed to me through this rent, continued to attract me night and day as time went on. I would ever andanon return to take my stand there and gaze upon it, wondering whatthere was left in place of what had gone. Emptiness is a thing mancannot bring himself to believe in; that which is _not_, is untrue; thatwhich is untrue, is not. So our efforts to find something, where we seenothing, are unceasing. 

Just as a young plant, surrounded by darkness, stretches itself, as itwere on tiptoe, to find its way out into the light, so when deathsuddenly throws the darkness of negation round the soul it tries andtries to rise into the light of affirmation. And what other sorrow iscomparable to the state wherein darkness prevents the finding of a wayout of the darkness?

And yet in the midst of this unbearable grief, flashes of joy seemed tosparkle in my mind, now and again, in a way which quite surprised me. That life was not a stable permanent fixture was itself the sorrowfultidings which helped to lighten my mind. That we were not prisoners forever within a solid stone wall of life was the thought whichunconsciously kept coming uppermost in rushes of gladness. That which Ihad held I was made to let go--this was the sense of loss whichdistressed me, --but when at the same moment I viewed it from thestandpoint of freedom gained, a great peace fell upon me. 

The all-pervading pressure of worldly existence compensates itself bybalancing life against death, and thus it does not crush us. Theterrible weight of an unopposed life force has not to be endured byman, --this truth came upon me that day as a sudden, wonderfulrevelation. 

With the loosening of the attraction of the world, the beauty of naturetook on for me a deeper meaning. Death had given me the correctperspective from which to perceive the world in the fulness of itsbeauty, and as I saw the picture of the Universe against the backgroundof Death I found it entrancing. 

At this time I was attacked with a recrudescence of eccentricity inthought and behaviour. To be called upon to submit to the customs andfashions of the day, as if they were something soberly and genuinelyreal, made me want to laugh. I _could_ not take them seriously. Theburden of stopping to consider what other people might think of me wascompletely lifted off my mind. I have been about in fashionable bookshops with a coarse sheet draped round me as my only upper garment, anda pair of slippers on my bare feet. Through hot and cold and wet I usedto sleep out on the verandah of the third storey. There the stars and Icould gaze at each other, and no time was lost in greeting the dawn. 

This phase had nothing to do with any ascetic feeling. It was more likea holiday spree as the result of discovering the schoolmaster Life withhis cane to be a myth, and thereby being able to shake myself free fromthe petty rules of his school. If, on waking one fine morning we were tofind gravitation reduced to only a fraction of itself, would we stilldemurely walk along the high road? Would we not rather skip overmany-storied houses for a change, or on encountering the monument take aflying jump, rather than trouble to walk round it? That was why, withthe weight of worldly life no longer clogging my feet, I could not stickto the usual course of convention. 

Alone on the terrace in the darkness of night I groped all over like ablind man trying to find upon the black stone gate of death some deviceor sign. Then when I woke with the morning light falling on thatunscreened bed of mine, I felt, as I opened my eyes, that my envelopinghaze was becoming transparent; and, as on the clearing of the mist thehills and rivers and forests of the scene shine forth, so the dew-washedpicture of the world-life, spread out before me, seemed to becomerenewed and ever so beautiful. 

(43) _The Rains and Autumn_

According to the Hindu calendar, each year is ruled by a particularplanet. So have I found that in each period of life a particular seasonassumes a special importance. When I look back to my childhood I canbest recall the rainy days. The wind-driven rain has flooded theverandah floor. The row of doors leading into the rooms are all closed. Peari, the old scullery maid, is coming from the market, her basketladen with vegetables, wading through the slush and drenched with therain. And for no rhyme or reason I am careering about the verandah in anecstasy of joy. 

This also comes back to me:--I am at school, our class is held in acolonnade with mats as outer screens; cloud upon cloud has come upduring the afternoon, and they are now heaped up, covering the sky; andas we look on, the rain comes down in close thick showers, the thunderat intervals rumbling long and loud; some mad woman with nails oflightning seems to be rending the sky from end to end; the mat wallstremble under the blasts of wind as if they would be blown in; we canhardly see to read, for the darkness. The Pandit gives us leave to closeour books. Then leaving the storm to do the romping and roaring for us, we keep swinging our dangling legs; and my mind goes right away acrossthe far-off unending moor through which the Prince of the fairy talepasses. 

I remember, moreover, the depth of the _Sravan_[55] nights. Thepattering of the rain finding its way through the gaps of my slumber, creates within a gladsome restfulness deeper than the deepest sleep. Andin the wakeful intervals I pray that the morning may see the raincontinue, our lane under water, and the bathing platform of the tanksubmerged to the last step. 

But at the age of which I have just been telling, Autumn is on thethrone beyond all doubt. Its life is to be seen spread under the cleartransparent leisure of _Aswin_. [56] And in the molten gold of thisautumn sunshine, softly reflected from the fresh dewy green outside, Iam pacing the verandah and composing, in the mode _Jogiya_, the song:

 In this morning light I do not know what it is that my heart desires. 

The autumn day wears on, the house gong sounds 12 noon, the modechanges; though my mind is still filled with music, leaving no room forcall of work or duty; and I sing:

 What idle play is this with yourself, my heart, through the listless hours?

Then in the afternoon I am lying on the white floorcloth of my littleroom, with a drawing book trying to draw pictures, --by no means anarduous pursuit of the pictorial muse, but just a toying with the desireto make pictures. The most important part is that which remains in themind, and of which not a line gets drawn on the paper. And in themeantime the serene autumn afternoon is filtering through the walls ofthis little Calcutta room filling it, as a cup, with goldenintoxication. 

I know not why, but all my days of that period I see as if through thisautumn sky, this autumn light--the autumn which ripened for me my songsas it ripens the corn for the tillers; the autumn which filled mygranary of leisure with radiance; the autumn which flooded my unburdenedmind with an unreasoning joy in fashioning song and story. 

The great difference which I see between the Rainy-season of mychildhood and the Autumn of my youth is that in the former it is outerNature which closely hemmed me in keeping me entertained with itsnumerous troupe, its variegated make-up, its medley of music; while thefestivity which goes on in the shining light of autumn is in manhimself. The play of cloud and sunshine is left in the background, whilethe murmurs of joy and sorrow occupy the mind. It is our gaze whichgives to the blue of the autumn sky its wistful tinge and human yearningwhich gives poignancy to the breath of its breezes. 

My poems have now come to the doors of men. Here informal goings andcomings are not allowed. There is door after door, chamber withinchamber. How many times have we to return with only a glimpse of thelight in the window, only the sound of the pipes from within the palacegates lingering in our ears. Mind has to treat with mind, will to cometo terms with will, through many tortuous obstructions, before givingand taking can come about. The foundation of life, as it dashes intothese obstacles, splashes and foams over in laughter and tears, anddances and whirls through eddies from which one cannot get a definiteidea of its course. 

(44) _Sharps and Flats_

_Sharps and Flats_ is a serenade from the streets in front of thedwelling of man, a plea to be allowed an entry and a place within thathouse of mystery. 

 This world is sweet, --I do not want to die. I wish to dwell in the ever-living life of Man. 

This is the prayer of the individual to the universal life. 

When I started for my second voyage to England, I made the acquaintanceon board ship of Asutosh Chaudhuri. He had just taken the M. A. Degreeof the Calcutta University and was on his way to England to join theBar. We were together only during the few days the steamer took fromCalcutta to Madras, but it became quite evident that depth of friendshipdoes not depend upon length of acquaintance. Within this short time heso drew me to him by his simple natural qualities of heart, that theprevious life-long gap in our acquaintance seemed always to have beenfilled with our friendship. 

When Ashu came back from England he became one of us. [57] He had not asyet had time or opportunity to pierce through all the barriers withwhich his profession is hedged in, and so become completely immersed init. The money-bags of his clients had not yet sufficiently loosened thestrings which held their gold, and Ashu was still an enthusiast ingathering honey from various gardens of literature. The spirit ofliterature which then saturated his being had nothing of the mustinessof library morocco about it, but was fragrant with the scent of unknownexotics from over the seas. At his invitation I enjoyed many a picnicamidst the spring time of those distant woodlands. 

He had a special taste for the flavour of French literature. I was thenwriting the poems which came to be published in the volume entitled_Kadi o Komal_, Sharps and Flats. Ashu could discern resemblancesbetween many of my poems and old French poems he knew. According to himthe common element in all these poems was the attraction which the playof world-life had for the poet, and this had found varied expression ineach and every one of them. The unfulfilled desire to enter into thislarger life was the fundamental motive throughout. 

"I will arrange and publish these poems for you, " said Ashu, andaccordingly that task was entrusted to him. The poem beginning _Thisworld is sweet_ was the one he considered to be the keynote of the wholeseries and so he placed it at the beginning of the volume. 

Ashu was very possibly right. When in childhood I was confined to thehouse, I offered my heart in my wistful gaze to outside nature in allits variety through the openings in the parapet of our innerroof-terrace. In my youth the world of men in the same way exerted apowerful attraction on me. To that also I was then an outsider andlooked out upon it from the roadside. My mind standing on the brinkcalled out, as it were, with an eager waving of hands to the ferrymansailing away across the waves to the other side. For Life longed tostart on life's journey. 

It is not true that my peculiarly isolated social condition was the barto my plunging into the midst of the world-life. I see no sign thatthose of my countrymen who have been all their lives in the thick ofsociety feel, any more than I did, the touch of its living intimacy. Thelife of our country has its high banks, and its flight of steps, and, onits dark waters falls the cool shade of the ancient trees, while fromwithin the leafy branches over-head the _koel_ cooes forth its ravishingold-time song. But for all that it is stagnant water. Where is itscurrent, where are the waves, when does the high tide rush in from thesea?

Did I then get from the neighbourhood on the other side of our lane anecho of the victorious pæan with which the river, falling and rising, wave after wave, cuts its way through walls of stone to the sea? No! Mylife in its solitude was simply fretting for want of an invitation tothe place where the festival of world-life was being held. 

Man is overcome by a profound depression while nodding through hisvoluptuously lazy hours of seclusion, because in this way he is deprivedof full commerce with life. Such is the despondency from which I havealways painfully struggled to get free. My mind refused to respond tothe cheap intoxication of the political movements of those days, devoid, as they seemed, of all strength of national consciousness, with theircomplete ignorance of the country, their supreme indifference to realservice of the motherland. I was tormented by a furious impatience, anintolerable dissatisfaction with myself and all around me. Much rather, I said to myself, would I be an Arab Bedouin!

While in other parts of the world there is no end to the movement andclamour of the revelry of free life, we, like the beggar maid, standoutside and longingly look on. When have we had the wherewithal to deckourselves for the occasion and go and join in it? Only in a countrywhere the spirit of separation reigns supreme, and innumerable pettybarriers divide one from another, need this longing to realise thelarger life of the world in one's own remain unsatisfied. 

I strained with the same yearning towards the world of men in my youth, as I did in my childhood towards outside nature from within thechalk-ring drawn round me by the servants. How rare, how unattainable, how far away it seemed! And yet if we cannot get into touch with it, iffrom it no breeze can blow, no current come, if no road be there forthe free goings and comings of travellers, then the dead things thataccumulate around us never get removed, but continue to be heaped uptill they smother all life. 

During the Rains there are only dark clouds and showers. And in theAutumn there is the play of light and shade in the sky, but that is notall-absorbing; for there is also the promise of corn in the fields. Soin my poetical career, when the rainy season was in the ascendant therewere only my vaporous fancies which stormed and showered; my utterancewas misty, my verses were wild. And with the _Sharps and Flats_ of myAutumn, not only was there the play of cloud-effects in the sky, but outof the ground crops were to be seen rising. Then, in the commerce withthe world of reality, both language and metre attempted definiteness andvariety of form. 

Thus ends another Book. The days of coming together of inside andoutside, kin and stranger, are closing in upon my life. My life'sjourney has now to be completed through the dwelling places of men. Andthe good and evil, joy and sorrow, which it thus encountered, are not tobe lightly viewed as pictures. What makings and breakings, victories anddefeats, clashings and minglings, are here going on!

I have not the power to disclose and display the supreme art with whichthe Guide of my life is joyfully leading me through all its obstacles, antagonisms and crookednesses towards the fulfilment of its innermostmeaning. And if I cannot make clear all the mystery of this design, whatever else I may try to show is sure to prove misleading at everystep. To analyse the image is only to get at its dust, not at the joy ofthe artist. 

So having escorted them to the door of the inner sanctuary I take leaveof my readers. 

Printed in the United States of America

FOOTNOTES:

[1] A jingling sentence in the Bengali Child's Primer. 

[2] Exercises in two-syllables. 

[3] Roofed colonnade or balcony. The writer's family house is anirregular three-storied mass of buildings, which had grown with thejoint family it sheltered, built round several courtyards orquadrangles, with long colonnades along the outer faces, and narrowergalleries running round each quadrangle, giving access to the singlerows of rooms. 

[4] The men's portion of the house is the outer; and the women's theinner. 

[5] These Bustees or settlements consisting of tumbledown hovels, existing side by side with palatial buildings, are still one of theanomalies of Calcutta. _Tr. _

[6] Corresponding to "Wonderland. "

[7] There are innumerable renderings of the Ramayana in the Indianlanguages. 

[8] A kind of crisp unsweetened pancake taken like bread along with theother courses. 

[9] Food while being eaten, and utensils or anything else touched by thehand engaged in conveying food to the mouth, are considered ceremoniallyunclean. 

[10] The writer is the youngest of seven brothers. The sixth brother ishere meant. 

[11] Obsolete word meaning bee. 

[12] The lane, a blind one, leads, at right angles to the frontverandah, from the public main road to the grounds round the house. 

[13] God of Death. 

[14] Goddess of Learning. 

[15] The Jupiter Pluvius of Hindu Mythology. 

[16] The King of the Yakshas is the Pluto of Hindu Mythology. 

[17] Corresponding to Lethe. 

[18] Krishna's playground. 

[19] Correspondence clerk. 

[20] Spices wrapped in betel leaf. 

[21] It is considered sinful for non-brahmins to cast glances onneophytes during the process of their sacred-thread investiture, beforethe ceremony is complete. 

[22] Two novices in the hermitage of the sage Kanva, mentioned in theSanskrit drama, Sakuntala. 

[23] The text for self-realisation. 

[24] Bards or reciters. 

[25] The Cow and the Brahmin are watchwords of modern Hindu Orthodoxy. 

[26] An instrument on which the keynote is strummed to accompanysinging. 

[27] A large proportion of words in the literary Bengali are derivedunchanged from the Sanskrit. 

[28] Servants call the master and mistress father, and mother, and thechildren brothers and sisters. 

[29] Name of Vishnu in his aspect of slayer of the proud demon, Madhu. 

[30] Nirada is a Sanscrit word meaning _cloud_, being a compound of_nira_ = water and _da_ = giver. In Bengali it is pronounced _nirode_. 

[31] Betel-leaf and spices. 

[32] Father of the well-known artists Gaganendra and Abanindra. _Ed. _

[33] In Bengali this word has come to mean an informal uninvitedgathering. 

[34] Systems of notation were not then in use. One of the most popularof the present-day systems was subsequently devised by the writer'sbrother here mentioned. _Tr. _

[35] The new bride of the house, wife of the writer's fourth brother, above-mentioned. _Tr. _

[36] It may be helpful to the foreign reader to explain that the expertsinger of Indian music improvises more or less on the tune outline madeover to him by the original composer, so that the latter need notnecessarily do more than give a correct idea of such outline. _Tr. _

[37] This would mean "the genius of Bhubanmohini" if that be taken asthe author's name. 

[38] Gifts of cloth for use as wearing apparel are customary by way ofceremonial offerings of affection, respect or seasonable greeting. 

[39] The old Vaishnava poets used to bring their name into the laststanza of the poem, this serving as their signature. Bhanu and Rabi bothmean the Sun. _Tr. _

[40] The dried and stripped centre-vein of a cocoanut leaf gives a longtapering stick of the average thickness of a match stick, and a bundleof these goes to make the common Bengal household broom which in thehands of the housewife is popularly supposed to be useful in keeping thewhole household in order from husband downwards. Its effect on a bareback is here alluded to. --_Tr. _

[41] There was a craze for phrenology at the time. _Tr. _

[42] Latterly Sir Tarak Palit, a life-long friend of the writer's secondbrother. _Tr. _

[43] Saraswati, the goddess of learning, is depicted in Bengal as cladin white and seated among a mass of lotus flowers. _Tr. _

[44] With Indian music it is not a mere question of correctly renderinga melody exactly as composed, but the theme of the original compositionis the subject of an improvised interpretative elaboration by theexpounding Artist. _Tr. _

[45] Valmiki Pratibha means the genius of Valmiki. The plot is based onthe story of Valmiki, the robber chief, being moved to pity and breakingout into a metrical lament on witnessing the grief of one of a pair ofcranes whose mate was killed by a hunter. In the metre which so came tohim he afterwards composed his _Ramayana_. _Tr. _

[46] Some Indian classic melodic compositions are designed on a schemeof accentuation, for which purpose the music is set, not to words, butto unmeaning notation-sounds representing drum-beats or plectrum-impactswhich in Indian music are of a considerable variety of tone, each havingits own sound-symbol. The _Telena_ is one such style of composition. _Tr. _

[47] Reciters of Puranic legendary lore. _Tr. _

[48] The Goddess of Wealth. 

[49] As distinguished generally from different provincial styles, butchiefly from the Dravidian style prevalent in the South. _Tr. _

[50] Many of the Hindustani classic modes are supposed to be best inkeeping with particular seasons of the year, or times of the day. _Tr. _

[51] The world, as the Indian boy knows it from fairy tale and folklore, has seven seas and thirteen rivers. _Tr. _

[52] This is addressed to Yashoda, mother of Krishna, by his playmates. Yashoda would dress up her darling every morning in his yellow garmentwith a peacock plume in his hair. But when it came to the point, she wasnervous about allowing him, young as he was, to join the other cowherdboys at the pasturage. So it often required a great deal of persuasionbefore they would be allowed to take charge of him. This is part of the_Vaishnava_ parable of the child aspect of Krishna's play with theworld. _Tr. _

[53] A Busti is an area thickly packed with shabby tiled huts, withnarrow pathways running through, and connecting it with the main street. These are inhabited by domestic servants, the poorer class of artisansand the like. Such settlements were formerly scattered throughout thetown even in the best localities, but are now gradually disappearingfrom the latter. _Tr. _

[54] One of Bankim Babu's brothers. 

[55] The month corresponding to July-August, the height of the rainyseason. 

[56] The month of Aswin corresponds to September-October, the longvacation time for Bengal. 

[57] Referring to his marriage with the writer's niece, Pratibha. _Tr. _

The following pages contain advertisements of Macmillan books by thesame author. 

_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_

=Personality=

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Herein are brought together some of the lectures which Sir RabindranathTagore delivered while in this country. Among those included are found:What is Art? The World of Personality, The Second Birth, My School andMeditation. Many of the thousands of people who heard Sir Rabindranathspeak on these different subjects will doubtless be glad of theopportunity here presented for further study of his thoughts andphilosophy. 

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"All the poetry of Tagore is here. " ... _Poetry Journal_. 

"Beautiful and marked by skilful rhythm. " _Newark Evening News_. 

"A clear portrayal of the dual nature of womankind. " _Graphic_. 

"The play is finely idyllic. " _Chicago Daily Tribune_. 

"A pretty situation, prettily worked out. And there is something piquantin the combination of the old Hindu metaphorical style, half mystical inallusion, with what is really a plea for the emancipation of women. "_The Nation_. 

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=Fruit Gathering=

_Cloth, 12mo, $1. 25. Leather, $1. 75. _

"A shining pathway up which we can confidently travel to those regionsof wisdom and experience which consciously or unconsciously we strive toreach. " _Boston Transcript_. 

"Quaintly lovely fragments. " _Chicago Herald_. 

"Exquisitely conceived and with all the distinctive grace which marked'Song Offerings. '" _San Francisco Chronicle_. 

"Exotic fragrance. " _Chicago Daily News_. 

"The songs have the quality of universality--the greatest quality whichpoetry can possess. " _Chicago Tribune_. 

"As perfect in form as they are beautiful and poignant in content. " _TheAthenæum, London_. 

"Nothing richer nor sweeter.... Something of Omar Khayyam and somethingof Rabbi ben Ezra, expressed more at length and more mystically. Insmoothly flowing rhythms, with vivid little pictures of life'sactivities, the poet sings of old age, the fruit gathering time, itssadness and its glory, its advantages and its sorrows. " _The BostonGlobe_. 

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=The Post Office=

Cloth, 12mo, $1. 00; leather, $1. 75. 

"... Filled with tender pathos and spiritual beauty. There are two acts, and the story is that of a frail little Indian lad condemned toseclusion and inaction by ill health. He makes a new world for himself, however, by his imagination and insatiable curiosity, and the passersbybring the world of action to him. The play has been presented in Englandby the Irish Players, and fully adapts itself to the charming simplicityand charm which are their principal characteristics. " _Phila. PublicLedger_. 

"A beautiful and appealing piece of dramatic work. " _Boston Transcript_. 

"Once more Tagore demonstrates the universality of his genius; once morehe shows how art and true feeling know no racial and no religiouslines. " _Kentucky Post_. 

"One reads in 'The Post Office' his own will of symbolism. Simplicityand a pervading, appealing pathos are the qualities transmitted to itslines by the poet. " _N. Y. World_. 

"He writes from his soul; there is neither bombast nor didacticism. Hispoems bring one to the quiet places where the soul speaks to the soulsurely but serenely. " _N. Y. American_. 

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=The King of the Dark Chamber=

By

RABINDRANATH TAGORE

Nobel Prizeman in Literature, 1913; Author of "Gitangali, " "TheGardener, " "The Crescent Moon, " "Sadhana, " "Chitra, " "The Post-Office, "etc. Cloth 12 mo, $1. 25; leather, $1. 75. 

"The real poetical imagination of it is unchangeable; the allegory, subtle and profound and yet simple, is cast into the form of a dramaticnarrative, which moves with unconventional freedom to a finelyimpressive climax; and the reader, who began in idle curiosity, findshis intelligence more and more engaged until, when he turns the lastpage, he has the feeling of one who has been moving in worlds notrealized, and communing with great if mysterious presences. "

_The London Globe_. 

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OTHER WORKS BY

=RABINDRANATH TAGORE=

_Nobel Prizeman in Literature, 1913_

=GITANJALI= (Song Offerings). A Collection of Prose Translationsmade by the author from the original Bengali. New Edition $1. 25

=THE GARDENER=. Poems of Youth $1. 25

=THE CRESCENT MOON=. Child Poems. (Colored Ill. ) $1. 25

=SADHANA: THE REALIZATION OF LIFE=. A volume of essays $1. 25

All four by Rabindranath Tagore, translated by the author from theoriginal Bengali. 

Rabindranath Tagore is the Hindu poet and preacher to whom the NobelPrize was recently awarded.... 

I would commend these volumes, and especially the one entitled"Sadhana, " the collection of essays, to all intelligent readers. I knowof nothing, except it be Maeterlinck, in the whole modern range of theliterature of the inner life that can compare with them. 

There are no preachers nor writers upon spiritual topics, whether inEurope or America, that have the depth of insight, the quickness ofreligious apperception, combined with the intellectual honesty andscientific clearness of Tagore.... 

Here is a book from a master, free as the air, with a mind universal asthe sunshine. He writes, of course, from the standpoint of the Hindu. But, strange to say, his spirit and teaching come nearer to Jesus, as wefind Him in the Gospels, than any modern Christian writer I know. 

He does for the average reader what Bergson and Eucken are doing forscholars; he rescues the soul and its faculties from their enslavementto logic-chopping. He shows us the way back to Nature and her spiritualvoices. 

He rebukes our materialistic, wealth-mad, Western life with the dignityand authority of one of the old Hebrew prophets.... 

He opens up the meaning of life. He makes us feel the redeeming factthat life is tremendous, a worth-while adventure. "Everything has sprungfrom immortal life and is vibrating with life. LIFE IS IMMENSE. " ... 

Tagore is a great human being. His heart is warm with love. His thoughtsare pure and high as the galaxy. 

(Copyright, 1913, by Frank Crane. ) Reprinted by permission from the _NewYork Globe_, Dec. 18, 1913. 

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 +------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Notes: | | | | Page 49: One instance of Govinda and one instance of | | Gobinda: discrepancy retained | | Page 53: Hindusthani _sic_ ("Hindustani" | | _sic_ in Footnote 50. ) | | Page 137: Closing quotes added after "... Singha;" | | Page 179: appetities amended to appetites | | Page 196: muscial amended to musical | | Page 219: Himayalas amended to Himalayas | | Page 235: cardamum _sic_ | | Page 236: casuarianas amended to casuarinas | | Page 270: cooes _sic_ | | Advertisements at close of book (unpaginated): | | transcendently _sic_ and Gitangali _sic_ | | | | Footnote 50 had a double reference in the original text, | | which has been retained here. | | | | Small discrepancies such as capitalisation between the | | List of Illustrations and the illustration captions have | | been retained. | | | | Inconsistent hyphenation has been retained. | | | | Inconsistent spelling of colours/colors has been retained. | | | | Sanskrit and Sanscrit are used interchangeably in the | | original. | | | +------------------------------------------------------------+

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