ich 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