ng straight from their hearts, used to lighten for us the
burden of household cares, they seem to have been visitors from some
other world.

(19) _Literary Companions_

There came to me in my boyhood a friend whose help in my literary
progress was invaluable. Akshay Chowdhury was a school-fellow of my
fourth brother. He was an M. A. in English Literature for which his love
was as great as his proficiency therein. On the other hand he had an
equal fondness for our older Bengali authors and Vaishnava Poets. He
knew hundreds of Bengali songs of unknown authorship, and on these he
would launch, with voice uplifted, regardless of tune, or consequence,
or of the express disapproval of his hearers. Nor could anything, within
him or without, prevent his loudly beating time to his own music, for
which the nearest table or book served his nimble fingers to rap a
vigorous tattoo on, to help to enliven the audience.

He was also one of those with an inordinate capacity for extracting
enjoyment from all and sundry. He was as ready to absorb every bit of
goodness in a thing as he was lavish in singing its praises. He had an
extraordinary gift as a lightning composer of lyrics and songs of no
mean merit, but in which he himself had no pride of authorship. He took
no further notice of the heaps of scattered scraps of paper on which his
pencil writings had been indited. He was as indifferent to his powers
as they were prolific.

One of his longer poetic pieces was much appreciated when it appeared in
the _Bangadarsan_, and I have heard his songs sung by many who knew
nothing at all about their composer.

A genuine delight in literature is much rarer than erudition, and it was
this enthusiastic enjoyment in Akshay Babu which used to awaken my own
literary appreciation. He was as liberal in his friendships as in his
literary criticisms. Among strangers he was as a fish out of water, but
among friends discrepancies in wisdom or age made no difference to him.
With us boys he was a boy. When he took his leave, late in the evening,
from the _mujlis_ of our elders, I would buttonhole and drag him to our
school room. There, with undiminished geniality he would make himself
the life and soul of our little gathering, seated on the top of our
study table. On many such occasions I have listened to him going into a
rapturous dissertation on some English poem; engaged him in some
appreciative discussion, critical inquiry, or hot dispute;