and from so many.

The first feeling of awe once overcome there was no holding me back. I
managed to get hold of a blue-paper manuscript book by the favour of one
of the officers of our estate. With my own hands I ruled it with pencil
lines, at not very regular intervals, and thereon I began to write
verses in a large childish scrawl.

Like a young deer which butts here, there and everywhere with its newly
sprouting horns, I made myself a nuisance with my budding poetry. More
so my elder[10] brother, whose pride in my performance impelled him to
hunt about the house for an audience.

I recollect how, as the pair of us, one day, were coming out of the
estate offices on the ground floor, after a conquering expedition
against the officers, we came across the editor of "The National Paper,"
Nabagopal Mitter, who had just stepped into the house. My brother
tackled him without further ado: "Look here, Nabagopal Babu! won't you
listen to a poem which Rabi has written?" The reading forthwith
followed.

My works had not as yet become voluminous. The poet could carry all his
effusions about in his pockets. I was writer, printer and publisher, all
in one; my brother, as advertiser, being my only colleague. I had
composed some verses on The Lotus which I recited to Nabagopal Babu then
and there, at the foot of the stairs, in a voice pitched as high as my
enthusiasm. "Well done!" said he with a smile. "But what is a
_dwirepha_?"[11]

How I had got hold of this word I do not remember. The ordinary name
would have fitted the metre quite as well. But this was the one word in
the whole poem on which I had pinned my hopes. It had doubtless duly
impressed our officers. But curiously enough Nabagopal Babu did not
succumb to it--on the contrary he smiled! He could not be an
understanding man, I felt sure. I never read poetry to him again. I have
since added many years to my age but have not been able to improve upon
my test of what does or does not constitute understanding in my hearer.
However Nabagopal Babu might smile, the word _dwirepha_, like a bee
drunk with honey, stuck to its place, unmoved.

(7) _Various Learning_

One of the teachers of the Normal School also gave us private lessons at
home. His body was lean, his features dry, his voice sharp. He looked
like a cane incarnate. His hours were from six to half-past-nine in the
morning. With him our reading ranged from popular literary and science
readers in Bengali