(24) _Ahmedabad_
When the _Bharati_ entered upon its second year, my second brother
proposed 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 was
posted 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 the
Badshahs of old. At the foot of the wall supporting a broad terrace
flowed the thin summer stream of the Savarmati river along one edge of
its ample bed of sand. My brother used to go off to his court, and I
would be left all alone in the vast expanse of the palace, with only the
cooing of the pigeons to break the midday stillness; and an
unaccountable curiosity kept me wandering about the empty rooms.
Into the niches in the wall of a large chamber my brother had put his
books. One of these was a gorgeous edition of Tennyson's works, with big
print and numerous pictures. The book, for me, was as silent as the
palace, 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 more
like inarticulate cooings than words. In my brother's library I also
found a book of collected Sanskrit poems edited by Dr. Haberlin and
printed at the old Serampore press. This was also beyond my
understanding but the sonorous Sanskrit words, and the march of the
metre, kept me tramping among the _Amaru Shataka_ poems to the mellow
roll of their drum call.
In the upper room of the palace tower was my lonely hermit cell, my only
companions being a nest of wasps. In the unrelieved darkness of the
night I slept there alone. Sometimes a wasp or two would drop off the
nest on to my bed, and if perchance I happened to roll on one, the
meeting was unpleasing to the wasp and keenly discomforting to me.
On moonlight nights pacing round and round the extensive terrace
overlooking the river was one of my caprices. It was while so doing that
I first composed my own tunes for my songs. The song addressed to the
Rose-maiden was one of these, and it still finds a place in my published
works.
Finding how imperfect was my knowledge of English I set to work reading
through some English books with the help of a dictionary. From my
earliest years it was my habit not to let any want of complete
comprehension interfere with my reading on, quite satisfied with the
structure which my imagination reared on the bits which I understood
here and there. I am reaping even to-day both the good and bad effects
of this habit.
(25) _England_
After six months thus spent in Ahmedabad we started for England. In an
unlucky moment I began to write letters about my journey to my relatives
and to the _Bharati_. Now it is beyond my power to call them back. These
were nothing but the outcome of youthful bravado. At that age the mind
refuses to admit that its greatest pride is in its power to understand,
to accept, to respect; and that modesty is the best means of enlarging
its domain. Admiration and praise are looked upon as a sign of weakness
or surrender, and the desire to cry down and hurt and demolish with
argument gives rise to this kind of intellectual fireworks. These
attempts of mine to establish my superiority by revilement might have
occasioned me amusement to-day, had not their want of straightness and
common courtesy been too painful.
From my earliest years I had had practically no commerce with the
outside world. To be plunged in this state, at the age of 17, into the
midst of the social sea of England would have justified considerable
misgiving as to my being able to keep afloat. But as my sister-in-law
happened to be in Brighton with her children I weathered the first shock
of it under her shelter.
Winter was then approaching. One evening as we were chatting round the
fireside, the children came running to us with the exciting news that it
had been snowing. We at once went out. It was bitingly cold, the sky
filled with white moonlight, the earth covered with white snow. It was
not the face of Nature familiar to me, but something quite
different--like a dream. Everything near seemed to have receded far
away, leaving the still white figure of an ascetic steeped in deep
meditation. 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-law
and in boisterous rompings with the children. They were greatly tickled
at my curious English pronunciation, and though in the rest of their
games I could whole-heartedly join, this I failed to see the fun of. How
could I explain to them that there was no logical means of
distinguishing 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 was
more properly the due of the vagaries of English spelling.
I became quite an adept in inventing new ways of keeping the children
occupied and amused. This art has stood me in good stead many a time
thereafter, and its usefulness for me is not yet over. But I no longer
feel in myself the same unbounded profusion of ready contrivance. That
was the first opportunity I had for giving my heart to children, and it
had 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 seas
for the one on this side. The idea was that I should study Law and come
back 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 memory
because she, who at home was an enthusiast in her self-imposed duty of
keeping my vanity in check, had impressed on me that my cranium[41] and
features generally, compared with that of many another were barely of a
medium order. I hope the reader will not fail to count it to my credit
that I implicitly believed her, and inwardly deplored the parsimony of
the Creator in the matter of my making. On many another occasion,
finding myself estimated by my English acquaintances differently from
what I had been accustomed to be by her, I was led to seriously worry my
mind over the divergence in the standard of taste between the two
countries!
One thing in the Brighton school seemed very wonderful: the other boys
were not at all rude to me. On the contrary they would often thrust
oranges and apples into my pockets and run away. I can only ascribe this
uncommon behaviour of theirs to my being a foreigner.
I was not long in this school either--but that was no fault of the
school. Mr. Tarak Palit[42] was then in England. He could see that this
was not the way for me to get on, and prevailed upon my brother to allow
him to take me to London, and leave me there to myself in a lodging
house. The lodgings selected faced the Regent Gardens. It was then the
depth of winter. There was not a leaf on the row of trees in front which
stood staring at the sky with their scraggy snow-covered branches--a
sight which chilled my very bones.
For the newly arrived stranger there can hardly be a more cruel place
than London in winter. I knew no one near by, nor could I find my way
about. The days of sitting alone at a window, gazing at the outside
world, came back into my life. But the scene in this case was not
attractive. There was a frown on its countenance; the sky turbid; the
light lacking lustre like a dead man's eye; the horizon shrunk upon
itself; with never an inviting smile from a broad hospitable world. The
room was but scantily furnished, but there happened to be a harmonium
which, after the daylight came to its untimely end, I used to play upon
according to my fancy. Sometimes Indians would come to see me; and,
though my acquaintance with them was but slight, when they rose to leave
I 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 the
naked trees to withstand the winter's grip. I do not know what his age
was but he clearly looked older than his years. Some days in the course
of our lessons he would suddenly be at a loss for some word and look
vacant and ashamed. His people at home counted him a crank. He had
become possessed of a theory. He believed that in each age some one
dominant idea is manifested in every human society in all parts of the
world; and though it may take different shapes under different degrees
of civilisation, it is at bottom one and the same; nor is such idea
taken from one by another by any process of adoption, for this truth
holds good even where there is no intercourse. His great preoccupation
was the gathering and recording of facts to prove this theory. And while
so engaged his home lacked food, his body clothes. His daughters had but
scant respect for his theory and were perhaps constantly upbraiding him
for his infatuation. Some days one could see from his face that he had
lighted upon some new proof, and that his thesis had correspondingly
advanced. On these occasions I would broach the subject, and wax
enthusiastic at his enthusiasm. On other days he would be steeped in
gloom, as if his burden was too heavy to bear. Then would our lessons
halt at every step; his eyes wander away into empty space; and his mind
refuse to be dragged into the pages of the first Latin Grammar. I felt
keenly for the poor body-starved theory-burdened soul, and though I was
under no delusion as to the assistance I got in my Latin, I could not
make up my mind to get rid of him. This pretence of learning Latin
lasted as long as I was at these lodgings. When on the eve of leaving
them I offered to settle his dues he said piteously: "I have done
nothing, and only wasted your time, I cannot accept any payment from
you." It was with great difficulty that I got him at last to take his
fees.
Though my Latin tutor had never ventured to trouble me with the proofs
of his theory, yet up to this day I do not disbelieve it. I am convinced
that the minds of men are connected through some deep-lying continuous
medium, and that a disturbance in one part is by it secretly
communicated to others.
Mr. Palit next placed me in the house of a coach named Barker. He used
to lodge and prepare students for their examinations. Except his mild
little wife there was not a thing with any pretensions to attractiveness
about this household. One can understand how such a tutor can get
pupils, for these poor creatures do not often get the chance of making a
choice. But it is painful to think of the conditions under which such
men get wives. Mrs. Barker had attempted to console herself with a pet
dog, but when Barker wanted to punish his wife he tortured the dog. So
that her affection for the unfortunate animal only made for an
enlargement of her field of sensibility.
From these surroundings, when my sister-in-law sent for me to Torquay in
Devonshire, I was only too glad to run off to her. I cannot tell how
happy I was with the hills there, the sea, the flower-covered meadows,
the shade of the pine woods, and my two little restlessly playful
companions. I was nevertheless sometimes tormented with questionings as
to why, when my eyes were so surfeited with beauty, my mind saturated
with joy, and my leisure-filled days crossing over the limitless blue of
space freighted with unalloyed happiness, there should be no call of
poetry to me. So one day off I went along the rocky shore, armed with
MS. book and umbrella, to fulfil my poet's destiny. The spot I selected
was 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 a
perpetual eagerness over the waters; rocked on the foam-flecked waves of
the 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 off
garment of some languorous wood nymph. Enthroned on that seat of stone I
wrote a poem _Magnatari_ (the sunken boat). I might have believed to-day
that it was good, had I taken the precaution of sinking it then in the
sea. But such consolation is not open to me, for it happens to be
existing in the body; and though banished from my published works, a
writ might yet cause it to be produced.
The messenger of duty however was not idle. Again came its call and I
returned 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. Only
the white haired Doctor, his wife and their eldest daughter were there.
The two younger girls, alarmed at this incursion of an Indian stranger
had gone off to stay with a relative. I think they came back home only
after they got the news of my not being dangerous.
In a very short time I became like one of the family. Mrs. Scott treated
me as a son, and the heartfelt kindness I got from her daughters is rare
even from one's own relations.
One thing struck me when living in this family--that human nature is
everywhere the same. We are fond of saying, and I also believed, that
the devotion of an Indian wife to her husband is something unique, and
not to be found in Europe. But I at least was unable to discern any
difference between Mrs. Scott and an ideal Indian wife. She was entirely
wrapped up in her husband. With their modest means there was no fussing
about of too many servants, and Mrs. Scott attended to every detail of
her husband's wants herself. Before he came back home from his work of
an evening, she would arrange his arm-chair and woollen slippers before
the fire with her own hands. She would never allow herself to forget for
a moment the things he liked, or the behaviour which pleased him. She
would go over the house every morning, with their only maid, from attic
to kitchen, and the brass rods on the stairs and the door knobs and
fittings would be scrubbed and polished till they shone again. Over and
above this domestic routine there were the many calls of social duty.
After getting through all her daily duties she would join with zest in
our evening readings and music, for it is not the least of the duties of
a good housewife to make real the gaiety of the leisure hour.
Some evenings I would join the girls in a table-turning seance. We would
place our fingers on a small tea table and it would go capering about
the room. It got to be so that whatever we touched began to quake and
quiver. Mrs. Scott did not quite like all this. She would sometimes
gravely 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 youthful
spirits. But one day when we put our hands on Dr. Scott's chimneypot to
make it turn, that was too much for her. She rushed up in a great state
of mind and forbade us to touch it. She could not bear the idea of Satan
having 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 that
stood out. The memory of her sweet self-abnegation makes it clear to me
that the ultimate perfection of all womanly love is to be found in
reverence; that where no extraneous cause has hampered its true
development woman's love naturally grows into worship. Where the
appointments of luxury are in profusion, and frivolity tarnishes both
day and night, this love is degraded, and woman's nature finds not the
joy of its perfection.
I spent some months here. Then it was time for my brother to return
home, and my father wrote to me to accompany him. I was delighted at the
prospect. The light of my country, the sky of my country, had been
silently calling me. When I said good bye Mrs. Scott took me by the hand
and 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 the
Doctor's family have departed to the other world, others are scattered
in 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 showing
through his gaping boots, his breast was partly uncovered. He said
nothing to me, perhaps because begging was forbidden, but he looked up
at my face just for a moment. The coin I gave him was perhaps more
valuable than he expected, for, after I had gone on a bit, he came after
me and said: "Sir, you have given me a gold piece by mistake," with
which he offered to return it to me. I might not have particularly
remembered this, but for a similar thing which happened on another
occasion. When I first reached the Torquay railway station a porter took
my luggage to the cab outside. After searching my purse for small change
in vain, I gave him half-a-crown as the cab started. After a while he
came running after us, shouting to the cabman to stop. I thought to
myself that finding me to be such an innocent he had hit upon some
excuse for demanding more. As the cab stopped he said: "You must have
mistaken a half-crown piece for a penny, Sir!"
I cannot say that I have never been cheated while in England, but not in
any way which it would be fair to hold in remembrance. What grew chiefly
upon me, rather, was the conviction that only those who are trustworthy
know how to trust. I was an unknown foreigner, and could have easily
evaded payment with impunity, yet no London shopkeeper ever mistrusted
me.
During the whole period of my stay in England I was mixed up in a
farcical comedy which I had to play out from start to finish. I happened
to get acquainted with the widow of some departed high Anglo-Indian
official. She was good enough to call me by the pet-name Ruby. Some
Indian friend of hers had composed a doleful poem in English in memory
of her husband. It is needless to expatiate on its poetic merit or
felicity of diction. As my ill-luck would have it, the composer had
indicated that the dirge was to be chanted to the mode _Behaga_. So the
widow one day entreated me to sing it to her thus. Like the silly
innocent that I was, I weakly acceded. There was unfortunately no one
there but I who could realise the atrociously ludicrous way in which the
_Behaga_ mode combined with those absurd verses. The widow seemed
intensely touched to hear the Indian's lament for her husband sung to
its native melody. I thought that there the matter ended, but that was
not to be.
I frequently met the widowed lady at different social gatherings, and
when after dinner we joined the ladies in the drawing room, she would
ask me to sing that _Behaga_. Everyone else would anticipate some
extraordinary specimen of Indian music and would add their entreaties to
hers. Then from her pocket would come forth printed copies of that
fateful composition, and my ears begin to redden and tingle. And at
last, with bowed head and quavering voice I would have to make a
beginning--but too keenly conscious that to none else in the room but me
was this performance sufficiently heartrending. At the end, amidst much
suppressed tittering, there would come a chorus of "Thank you very
much!" "How interesting!" And in spite of its being winter I would
perspire all over. Who would have predicted at my birth or at his death
what a severe blow to me would be the demise of this estimable
Anglo-Indian!
Then, for a time, while I was living with Dr. Scott and attending
lectures at the University College, I lost touch with the widow. She was
in a suburban locality some distance away from London, and I frequently
got letters from her inviting me there. But my dread of that dirge kept
me from accepting these invitations. At length I got a pressing telegram
from her. I was on my way to college when this telegram reached me and
my stay in England was then about to come to its close. I thought to
myself I ought to see the widow once more before my departure, and so
yielded to her importunity.
Instead of coming home from college I went straight to the railway
station. It was a horrible day, bitterly cold, snowing and foggy. The
station I was bound for was the terminus of the line. So I felt quite
easy in mind and did not think it worth while to inquire about the time
of arrival.
All the station platforms were coming on the right hand side, and in the
right hand corner seat I had ensconced myself reading a book. It had
already become so dark that nothing was visible outside. One by one the
other passengers got down at their destinations. We reached and left the
station just before the last one. Then the train stopped again, but
there was nobody to be seen, nor any lights or platform. The mere
passenger has no means of divining why trains should sometimes stop at
the wrong times and places, so, giving up the attempt, I went on with my
reading. Then the train began to move backwards. There seems to be no
accounting for railway eccentricity, thought I as I once more returned
to my book. But when we came right back to the previous station, I could
remain indifferent no longer. "When are we getting to ----" I inquired
at the station. "You are just coming from there," was the reply. "Where
are we going now, then?" I asked, thoroughly flurried. "To London." I
thereupon understood that this was a shuttle train. On inquiring about
the next train to ---- I was informed that there were no more trains
that night. And in reply to my next question I gathered that there was
no inn within five miles.
I had left home after breakfast at ten in the morning, and had had
nothing since. When abstinence is the only choice, an ascetic frame of
mind comes easy. I buttoned up my thick overcoat to the neck and seating
myself under a platform lamp went on with my reading. The book I had
with me was Spencer's _Data of Ethics_, then recently published. I
consoled myself with the thought that I might never get another such
opportunity of concentrating my whole attention on such a subject.
After a short time a porter came and informed me that a special was
running and would be in in half an hour. I felt so cheered up by the
news that I could not go on any longer with the _Data of Ethics_. Where
I 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 was
unable to take much pride in the account of my wonderful adventures
which I gave her. Dinner was over; nevertheless, as my misfortune was
hardly my fault, I did not expect condign punishment, especially as the
dispenser was a woman. But all that the widow of the high Anglo-Indian
official 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 some
assistance in allaying my consuming hunger I managed to swallow a cup of
strong decoction with a couple of dry biscuits. When I at length reached
the drawing room I found a gathering of elderly ladies and among them
one pretty young American who was engaged to a nephew of my hostess and
seemed busy going through the usual premarital love passages.
"Let's have some dancing," said my hostess. I was neither in the mood
nor bodily condition for that exercise. But it is the docile who achieve
the most impossible things in this world; so, though the dance was
primarily got up for the benefit of the engaged couple, I had to dance
with the ladies of considerably advanced age, with only the tea and
biscuits between myself and starvation.
But my sorrows did not end here. "Where are you putting up for the
night?" asked my hostess. This was a question for which I was not
prepared. While I stared at her, speechless, she explained that as the
local inn would close at midnight I had better betake myself thither
without further delay. Hospitality, however, was not entirely wanting
for I had not to find the inn unaided, a servant showing me the way
there with a lantern. At first I thought this might prove a blessing in
disguise, and at once proceeded to make inquiries for food: flesh, fish
or vegetable, hot or cold, anything! I was told that drinks I could have
in any variety but nothing to eat. Then I looked to slumber for
forgetfulness, but there seemed to be no room even in her
world-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 found
a cold repast spread out, evidently the remnants of last night's dinner.
A small portion of this, lukewarm or cold, offered to me last night
could not have hurt anyone, while my dancing might then have been less
like the agonised wrigglings of a landed carp.
After breakfast my hostess informed me that the lady for whose
delectation I had been invited to sing was ill in bed, and that I would
have to serenade her from her bed-room door. I was made to stand up on
the staircase landing. Pointing to a closed door the widow said: "That's
where she is." And I gave voice to that _Behaga_ dirge facing the
mysterious unknown on the other side. Of what happened to the invalid as
the result I have yet received no news.
After my return to London I had to expiate in bed the consequences of my
fatuous complaisance. Dr. Scott's girls implored me, on my conscience,
not to take this as a sample of English hospitality. It was the effect
of India's salt, they protested.
(26) _Loken Palit_
While I was attending lectures on English literature at the University
College, Loken Palit was my class fellow. He was about 4 years younger
than I. At the age I am writing these reminiscences a difference of 4
years is not perceptible. But it is difficult for friendship to bridge
the gulf between 17 and 13. Lacking the weight of years the boy is
always anxious to keep up the dignity of seniority. But this did not
raise any barrier in my mind in the case of the boy Loken, for I could
not 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 about
it none need have complained, but my young friend was so surcharged with
high spirits that at the least provocation they would burst forth as
laughter. In all countries girls have a perverse degree of application
to their studies, and I feel repentant as I recall the multitude of
reproachful blue eyes which vainly showered disapprobation on our
unrestrained merriment. But in those days I felt not the slightest
sympathy with the distress of disturbed studiousness. By the grace of
Providence I have never had a headache in my life, nor a moment of
compunction for interrupted school studies.
With our laughter as an almost unbroken accompaniment we managed also to
do a bit of literary discussion, and, though Loken's reading of Bengali
literature was less extensive than mine, he made up for that by the
keenness of his intellect. Among the subjects we discussed was Bengali
orthography.
The way it arose was this. One of the Scott girls wanted me to teach her
Bengali. When taking her through the alphabet I expressed my pride that
Bengali spelling has a conscience, and does not delight in overstepping
rules at every step. I made clear to her how laughable would have been
the waywardness of English spelling but for the tragic compulsion we
were under to cram it for our examinations. But my pride had a fall. It
transpired that Bengali spelling was quite as impatient of bondage, but
that habit had blinded me to its transgressions.
Then I began to search for the laws regulating its lawlessness. I was
quite surprised at the wonderful assistance which Loken proved to be in
this 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 in
rippling merriment, flowed on in a widening stream. Loken's boisterous
delight in literature was as the wind in the sails of my literary
adventure. And when at the height of my youth I was driving the tandem
of prose and poetry at a furious rate, Loken's unstinted appreciation
kept my energies from flagging for a moment. Many an extraordinary prose
or poetical flight have I taken in his bungalow in the moffussil. On
many an occasion did our literary and musical gatherings assemble under
the auspices of the evening star to disperse, as did the lamplights at
the breezes of dawn, under the morning star.
Of the many lotus flowers at _Saraswati's_[43] feet the blossom of
friendship must be her favorite. I have not come across much of golden
pollen in her lotus bank, but have nothing to complain of as regards the
profusion of the sweet savour of good-fellowship.
(27) _The Broken Heart_
While in England I began another poem, which I went on with during my
journey home, and finished after my return. This was published under the
name of _Bhagna Hriday_, The Broken Heart. At the time I thought it
very good. There was nothing strange in the writer's thinking so; but it
did not fail to gain the appreciation of the readers of the time as
well. I remember how, after it came out, the chief minister of the late
Raja of Tipperah called on me solely to deliver the message that the
Raja admired the poem and entertained high hopes of the writer's future
literary career.
About this poem of my eighteenth year let me set down here what I wrote
in 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-two
or twenty-three, was one of utter disorderliness.
When, in the early ages of the Earth, land and water had not yet
distinctly separated, huge misshapen amphibious creatures walked the
trunk-less forests growing on the oozing silt. Thus do the passions of
the dim ages of the immature mind, as disproportionate and curiously
shaped, haunt the unending shades of its trackless, nameless
wildernesses. 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 an
outlet, each sought to assert superiority through exaggeration.
When milk-teeth are trying to push their way through, they work the
infant into a fever. All this agitation finds no justification till the
teeth are out and have begun assisting in the absorption of food. In the
same way do our early passions torment the mind, like a malady, till
they realise their true relationship with the outer world.
The lessons I learnt from my experiences at that stage are to be found
in every moral text-book, but are not therefore to be despised. That
which keeps our appetites confined within us, and checks their free
access to the outside, poisons our life. Such is selfishness which
refuses to give free play to our desires, and prevents them from
reaching their real goal, and that is why it is always accompanied by
festering untruths and extravagances. When our desires find unlimited
freedom in good work they shake off their diseased condition and come
back to their own nature;--that is their true end, there also is the joy
of their being.
The condition of my immature mind which I have described was fostered
both by the example and precept of the time, and I am not sure that the
effects of these are not lingering on to the present day. Glancing back
at the period of which I tell, it strikes me that we had gained more of
stimulation than of nourishment out of English Literature. Our literary
gods then were Shakespeare, Milton and Byron; and the quality in their
work which stirred us most was strength of passion. In the social life
of Englishmen passionate outbursts are kept severely in check, for which
very reason, perhaps, they so dominate their literature, making its
characteristic to be the working out of extravagantly vehement feelings
to an inevitable conflagration. At least this uncontrolled excitement
was what we learnt to look on as the quintessence of English literature.
[Illustration: Moonlight]
In the impetuous declamation of English poetry by Akshay Chowdhury, our
initiator into English literature, there was the wildness of
intoxication. The frenzy of Romeo's and Juliet's love, the fury of King
Lear's impotent lamentation, the all-consuming fire of Othello's
jealousy, these were the things that roused us to enthusiastic
admiration. Our restricted social life, our narrower field of activity,
was hedged in with such monotonous uniformity that tempestuous feelings
found no entrance;--all was as calm and quiet as could be. So our hearts
naturally craved the life-bringing shock of the passionate emotion in
English literature. Ours was not the æsthetic enjoyment of literary art,
but the jubilant welcome by stagnation of a turbulent wave, even though
it should stir up to the surface the slime of the bottom.
Shakespeare's contemporary literature represents the war-dance of the
day when the Renascence came to Europe in all the violence of its
reaction against the severe curbing and cramping of the hearts of men.
The examination of good and evil, beauty and ugliness, was not the main
object,--man then seemed consumed with the anxiety to break through all
barriers to the inmost sanctuary of his being, there to discover the
ultimate image of his own violent desire. That is why in this literature
we find such poignant, such exuberant, such unbridled expression.
The spirit of this bacchanalian revelry of Europe found entrance into
our demurely well-behaved social world, woke us up, and made us lively.
We were dazzled by the glow of unfettered life which fell upon our
custom-smothered heart, pining for an opportunity to disclose itself.
There was another such day in English literature when the slow-measure
of Pope's common time gave place to the dance-rhythm of the French
revolution. This had Byron for its poet. And the impetuosity of his
passion also moved our veiled heart-bride in the seclusion of her
corner.
In this wise did the excitement of the pursuit of English literature
come to sway the heart of the youth of our time, and at mine the waves
of this excitement kept beating from every side. The first awakening is
the time for the play of energy, not its repression.
And yet our case was so different from that of Europe. There the
excitability and impatience of bondage was a reflection from its history
into its literature. Its expression was consistent with its feeling. The
roaring of the storm was heard because a storm was really raging. The
breeze therefrom that ruffled our little world sounded in reality but
little above a murmur. Therein it failed to satisfy our minds, so that
our attempts to imitate the blast of a hurricane led us easily into
exaggeration,--a tendency which still persists and may not prove easy of
cure.
And for this, the fact that in English literature the reticence of true
art has not yet appeared, is responsible. Human emotion is only one of
the ingredients of literature and not its end,--which is the beauty of
perfect fulness consisting in simplicity and restraint. This is a
proposition which English literature does not yet fully admit.
Our minds from infancy to old age are being moulded by this English
literature alone. But other literatures of Europe, both classical and
modern, of which the art-form shows the well-nourished development due
to a systematic cultivation of self-control, are not subjects of our
study; and so, as it seems to me, we are yet unable to arrive at a
correct perception of the true aim and method of literary work.
Akshay Babu, who had made the passion in English literature living to
us, was himself a votary of the emotional life. The importance of
realising truth in the fulness of its perfection seemed less apparent to
him than that of feeling it in the heart. He had no intellectual respect
for religion, but songs of _Shy[=a]m[=a]_, the dark Mother, would bring
tears to his eyes. He felt no call to search for ultimate reality;
whatever moved his heart served him for the time as the truth, even
obvious coarseness not proving a deterrent.
Atheism was the dominant note of the English prose writings then in
vogue,--Bentham, Mill and Comte being favourite authors. Theirs was the
reasoning in terms of which our youths argued. The age of Mill
constitutes a natural epoch in English History. It represents a healthy
reaction of the body politic; these destructive forces having been
brought in, temporarily, to rid it of accumulated thought-rubbish. In
our country we received these in the letter, but never sought to make
practical use of them, employing them only as a stimulant to incite
ourselves to moral revolt. Atheism was thus for us a mere intoxication.
For these reasons educated men then fell mainly into two classes. One
class would be always thrusting themselves forward with unprovoked
argumentation to cut to pieces all belief in God. Like the hunter whose
hands itch, no sooner he spies a living creature on the top or at the
foot of a tree, to kill it, whenever these came to learn of a harmless
belief lurking anywhere in fancied security, they felt stirred up to
sally forth and demolish it. We had for a short time a tutor of whom
this was a pet diversion. Though I was a mere boy, even I could not
escape his onslaughts. Not that his attainments were of any account, or
that his opinions were the result of any enthusiastic search for the
truth, being mostly gathered from others' lips. But though I fought him
with all my strength, unequally matched in age as we were, I suffered
many a bitter defeat. Sometimes I felt so mortified I almost wanted to
cry.
The other class consisted not of believers, but religious epicureans,
who found comfort and solace in gathering together, and steeping
themselves in pleasing sights, sounds and scents galore, under the garb
of religious ceremonial; they luxuriated in the paraphernalia of
worship. In neither of these classes was doubt or denial the outcome of
the travail of their quest.
Though these religious aberrations pained me, I cannot say I was not at
all influenced by them. With the intellectual impudence of budding youth
this revolt also found a place. The religious services which were held
in our family I would have nothing to do with, I had not accepted them
for my own. I was busy blowing up a raging flame with the bellows of my
emotions. It was only the worship of fire, the giving of oblations to
increase its flame--with no other aim. And because my endeavour had no
end in view it was measureless, always reaching beyond any assigned
limit.
As with religion, so with my emotions, I felt no need for any underlying
truth, my excitement being an end in itself. I call to mind some lines
of 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; for
nothing compels it to wear itself to tatters. In truth sorrow is not
desirable, but taken apart its pungency may appear savoury. This savour
our poets often made much of; leaving out the god in whose worship they
were indulging. This childishness our country has not yet succeeded in
getting rid of. So even to-day, when we fail to see the truth of
religion, we seek in its observance an artistic gratification. So, also,
much of our patriotism is not service of the mother-land, but the luxury
of bringing ourselves into a desirable attitude of mind toward the
country.