out--you will never accomplish
anything with big wigs; they can never be got to agree with one
another." With which he refused to come in. Bankim Babu became a member,
but I cannot say that he took much interest in the work.

To be plain, so long as this academy lived Rajendrahal Mitra did
everything single-handed. He began with Geographical terms. The draft
list was made out by Dr. Rajendrahal himself and was printed and
circulated for the suggestions of the members. We had also an idea of
transliterating in Bengali the name of each foreign country as
pronounced by itself.

Pandit Vidyasagar's prophecy was fulfilled. It did not prove possible to
get the big wigs to do anything. And the academy withered away shortly
after sprouting. But Rajendrahal Mitra was an all-round expert and was
an academy in himself. My labours in this cause were more than repaid by
the privilege of his acquaintance. I have met many Bengali men of
letters in my time but none who left the impression of such brilliance.

I used to go and see him in the office of the Court of Wards in
Maniktala. I would go in the mornings and always find him busy with his
studies, and with the inconsiderateness of youth, I felt no hesitation
in disturbing him. But I have never seen him the least bit put out on
that account. As soon as he saw me he would put aside his work and begin
to talk to me. It is a matter of common knowledge that he was somewhat
hard of hearing, so he hardly ever gave me occasion to put him any
question. He would take up some broad subject and talk away upon it, and
it was the attraction of these discourses which drew me there. Converse
with no other person ever gave me such a wealth of suggestive ideas on
so many different subjects. I would listen enraptured.

I think he was a member of the text-book committee and every book he
received for approval, he read through and annotated in pencil. On some
occasions he would select one of these books for the text of discourses
on the construction of the Bengali language in particular or Philology
in general, which were of the greatest benefit to me. There were few
subjects which he had not studied and anything he had studied he could
clearly expound.

If we had not relied on the other members of the Academy we had tried to
found, but left everything to Dr. Rajendrahal, the present _Sahitya
Parishat_ would have doubtless found the matters it is now occupied with
left in a much more advanced stat