fluent command of English: it was necessary to be
familiar with the details of native life and manners, and to have a
sufficient acquaintance with the religious, domestic, and social
customs of Bengali homes. Possessing these, Mrs. Knight has now
presented us with a modern Hindu novelette, smoothly readable
throughout, perfectly well transferred from its vernacular (with such
omissions as were necessary), and valuable, as I venture to affirm, to
English readers as well from its skill in construction and intrinsic
interest as for the light which it sheds upon the indoor existence of
well-to-do Hindus, and the excellent specimen which it furnishes of
the sort of indigenous literature happily growing popular in their
cities and towns.

The author of "The Poison Tree" is Babu Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, a
native gentleman of Bengal, of superior intellectual acquisitions,
who ranks unquestionably as the first living writer of fiction in his
Presidency. His renown is widespread among native readers, who
recognize the truthfulness and power of his descriptions, and are
especially fond of "Krishna Kanta's Will," "Mrinalini," and this very
story of the _Bisha Briksha_, which belongs to modern days in India,
and to the new ideas which are spreading--not always quite
happily--among the families of the land. Allowance being made for the
loss which an original author cannot but sustain by the transfer of
his style and method into another language and system of thought, it
will be confessed, I think, that the reputation of "Bankim Babu" is
well deserved, and that Bengal has here produced a writer of true
genius, whose vivacious invention, dramatic force, and purity of aim,
promise well for the new age of Indian vernacular literature.

It would be wrong to diminish the pleasure of the English reader by
analysing the narrative and forestalling its plot. That which appears
to me most striking and valuable in the book is the faithful view it
gives of the gentleness and devotion of the average Hindu wife.
Western people are wont to think that because marriages are arranged
at an early age in India, and without the betrothed pair having the
slightest share in the mutual choice, that wedded love of a sincere
sort must be out of the question, and conjugal happiness very rare.
The contrary is notably the case. Human nature is, somehow, so full of
accidental harmonies, that a majority among the households thus
constituted furnish examples of