hes on that immortal epic. This impudent criticism was my first
contribution 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 seen
practically nothing of the world except an exaggerated image of his own
nebulous self. So the hero of the story was naturally a poet, not the
writer as he was, but as he imagined or desired himself to seem. It
would hardly be correct to say that he desired to _be_ what he
portrayed; 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 easy
to 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 and
restraint in expression are not possible. Then, in the endeavour to
display magnified that which is really big in itself, it becomes
impossible to avoid a grotesque and ridiculous exhibition.

When I blush to read these effusions of my boyhood I am also struck with
the fear that very possibly in my later writings the same distortion,
wrought by straining after effect, lurks in a less obvious form. The
loudness 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. When
I went with my second brother to Ahmedabad, some enthusiastic friend of
mine took me by surprise by printing and publishing it and sending me a
copy. I cannot say that he did well, but the feeling that was roused in
me at the time did not resemble that of an indignant judge. He got his
punishment, however, not from the author, but from the public who hold
the purse strings. I have heard that the dead load of the books lay, for
many a long day, heavy on the shelves of the booksellers and the mind of
the 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 of
ensuring repentance at maturity than to rush into print too early. But
it has one redeeming feature: the irresistible impulse to see one's
writings in print exhausts itself during early life. Who are the
readers, what do they say, what printers' errors have remained
uncorre