as the
musical text of the play.

Before I went to England we occasionally used to have gatherings of
literary men in our house, at which music, recitations and light
refreshments were served up. After my return one more such gathering
was held, which happened to be the last. It was for an entertainment in
this connection that the _Valmiki Pratibha_ was composed. I played
_Valmiki_ and my niece, Pratibha, took the part of _Saraswati_--which
bit of history remains recorded in the name.

I had read in some work of Herbert Spencer's that speech takes on
tuneful inflexions whenever emotion comes into play. It is a fact that
the tone or tune is as important to us as the spoken word for the
expression of anger, sorrow, joy and wonder. Spencer's idea that,
through a development of these emotional modulations of voice, man found
music, appealed to me. Why should it not do, I thought to myself, to act
a drama in a kind of recitative based on this idea. The _Kathakas_[47]
of our country attempt this to some extent, for they frequently break
into a chant which, however, stops short of full melodic form. As blank
verse is more elastic than rhymed, so such chanting, though not devoid
of rhythm, can more freely adapt itself to the emotional interpretation
of the text, because it does not attempt to conform to the more rigorous
canons of tune and time required by a regular melodic composition. The
expression of feeling being the object, these deficiencies in regard to
form do not jar on the hearer.

Encouraged by the success of this new line taken in the _Valmiki
Pratibha_, I composed another musical play of the same class. It was
called the _Kal Mrigaya_, The Fateful Hunt. The plot was based on the
story of the accidental killing of the blind hermit's only son by King
Dasaratha. It was played on a stage erected on our roof-terrace, and the
audience seemed profoundly moved by its pathos. Afterwards, much of it
was, with slight changes, incorporated in the _Valmiki Pratibha_, and
this play ceased to be separately published in my works.

Long afterwards, I composed a third musical play, _Mayar Khela_, the
Play of _Maya_, an operetta of a different type. In this the songs were
important, not the drama. In the others a series of dramatic situations
were strung on a thread of melody; this was a garland of songs with just
a thread of dramatic plot running through. The play of feeling, and not
action, was its special feature. In point of