ance, a barrier was set up between this play of inside
and outside. And my whole being eddied round and round my troubled
heart, creating a vortex within itself, in the whirls of which its
consciousness was confined.

This loss of the harmony between inside and outside, due to the
over-riding claims of the heart in its hunger, and consequent
restriction of the privilege of communion which had been mine, was
mourned by me in the _Evening Songs_. In the _Morning Songs_ I
celebrated the sudden opening of a gate in the barrier, by what shock I
know not, through which I regained the lost one, not only as I knew it
before, but more deeply, more fully, by force of the intervening
separation.

Thus did the First Book of my life come to an end with these chapters of
union, separation and reunion. Or, rather, it is not true to say it has
come to an end. The same subject has still to be continued through more
elaborate solutions of worse complexities, to a greater conclusion. Each
one comes here to finish but one book of life, which, during the
progress of its various parts, grows spiral-wise on an ever-increasing
radius. So, while each segment may appear different from the others at a
cursory glance, they all really lead back to the self-same starting
centre.

The prose writings of the _Evening Songs_ period were published, as I
have said, under the name of _Vividha Prabandha_. Those others which
correspond to the time of my writing the _Morning Songs_ came out under
the title of _Alochana_, Discussions. The difference between the
characteristics of these two would be a good index of the nature of the
change that had in the meantime taken place within me.

PART VII

(35) _Rajendrahal Mitra_

It was about this time that my brother Jyotirindra had the idea of
founding a Literary Academy by bringing together all the men of letters
of repute. To compile authoritative technical terms for the Bengali
language and in other ways to assist in its growth was to be its
object--therein differing but little from the lines on which the modern
_Sahitya Parishat_, Academy of Literature, has taken shape.

Dr. Rajendrahal Mitra took up the idea of this Academy with enthusiasm,
and he was eventually its president for the short time it lasted. When I
went to invite Pandit Vidyasagar to join it, he gave a hearing to my
explanation of its objects and the names of the proposed members, then
said: "My advice to you is to leave us