THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

ONEHis Youth and College LifeBankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya, the creatorand king of Bengali prose, was a high-caste Brahman andthe son of a distinguished official in Lower Bengal. Born atKantalpara on the 27th June 1838, dead at Calcutta on the 8thApril 1894, his fifty-six years of laborious life were a parcel ofthe most splendid epoch in Bengali history; yet among its manynoble names, his is the noblest. His life shows us three faces,his academical career, his official labours and his literary greatness;it will be here my endeavour to give some description of eachand all. The first picture we have of his childhood is his masteringthe alphabet at a single reading; and this is not only theinitial picture but an image and prophecy of the rest. Even thusearly men saw in him the three natural possessions of the culturedBengali, a boundless intellect, a frail constitution and atemper mild to the point of passivity. And indeed Bankim wasnot only our greatest: he was also our type and magnified pattern.He was the image of all that is most finely characteristicin the Bengali race. At Midnapur, the home of his childhood,the magnificence of his intellect came so early into view, thathis name grew into a proverb. “You will soon be another Bankim”,— for a master to say that was the hyperbole of praise, andthe best reward of industry. He ascended the school by leapsand bounds; so abnormal indeed was his swiftness that it puthis masters in fear for him. They grew nervous lest they shouldspoil by over-instruction the delicate fibre of his originality, andwith a wise caution, they obstructed his entrance into the highestclass. Bankim had always an extraordinary luck. Just as atschool his fine promise was saved by the prudence of its guardiansfrom the altar of High Education, the Moloch to whomwe stupidly sacrifice India's most hopeful sons, so it was savedat Hugly College by his own distaste for hard work. At Hugly