maturity.

This lightness of manner and importance of matter form a combination the
translation of which into a different language is naturally a matter of
considerable difficulty. It was, in any case, a task which the present
Translator, not being an original writer in the English language, would
hardly have ventured to undertake, had there not been other
considerations. The translator's familiarity, however, with the
persons, scenes, and events herein depicted made it a temptation
difficult for him to resist, as well as a responsibility which he did
not care to leave to others not possessing these advantages, and
therefore more liable to miss a point, or give a wrong impression.

The Translator, moreover, had the author's permission and advice to make
a free translation, a portion of which was completed and approved by the
latter before he left India on his recent tour to Japan and America.

In regard to the nature of the freedom taken for the purposes of the
translation, it may be mentioned that those suggestions which might not
have been as clear to the foreign as to the Bengali reader have been
brought out in a slightly more elaborate manner than in the original
text; while again, in rare cases, others which depend on allusions
entirely unfamiliar to the non-Indian reader, have been omitted rather
than spoil by an over-elaboration the simplicity and naturalness which
is the great feature of the original.

There are no footnotes in the original. All the footnotes here given
have been added by the Translator in the hope that they may be of
further assistance to the foreign reader.

CONTENTS

PAGE

Translator's Preface v

PART I

1. 1

2. Teaching Begins 3

3. Within and Without 8

PART II

4. Servocracy 25

5. The Normal School 30

6. Versification 35

7. Various Learning 38

8. My First Outing 44

9. Practising Poetry 48

PART III

10. Srikantha Babu 53

11. Our Bengali Course Ends