draw up under the portico, and visitors would be constantly coming and
going. What was happening I could not very well make out, but would keep
staring at the rows of lighted casements from my place in the darkness.
The intervening space was not great but the gulf between my infant world
and these lights was immense.

My elder cousin Ganendra had just got a drama written by Pandit
Tarkaratna and was having it staged in the house. His enthusiasm for
literature and the fine arts knew no bounds. He was the centre of the
group who seem to have been almost consciously striving to bring about
from every side the renascence which we see to-day. A pronounced
nationalism in dress, literature, music, art and the drama had awakened
in and around him. He was a keen student of the history of different
countries and had begun but could not complete a historical work in
Bengali. He had translated and published the Sanskrit drama,
Vikramorvasi, and many a well-known hymn is his composition. He may be
said to have given us the lead in writing patriotic poems and songs.
This was in the days when the Hindu Mela was an annual institution and
there his song "Ashamed am I to sing of India's glories" used to be
sung.

I was still a child when my cousin Ganendra died in the prime of his
youth, but for those who have once beheld him it is impossible to forget
his handsome, tall and stately figure. He had an irresistible social
influence. He could draw men round him and keep them bound to him; while
his powerful attraction was there, disruption was out of the question.
He was one of those--a type peculiar to our country--who, by their
personal magnetism, easily establish themselves in the centre of their
family or village. In any other country, where large political, social
or commercial groups are being formed, such would as naturally become
national leaders. The power of organising a large number of men into a
corporate group depends on a special kind of genius. Such genius in our
country runs to waste, a waste, as pitiful, it seems to me, as that of
pulling down a star from the firmament for use as a lucifer match.

I remember still better his younger brother, my cousin Gunendra.[32] He
likewise kept the house filled with his personality. His large, gracious
heart embraced alike relatives, friends, guests and dependants. Whether
in his broad south verandah, or on the lawn by the fountain, or at the
tank-edge on the fishing platform, he pres