Page:An Unfinished Song.djvu/8



author of this book, a high caste Indian lady, is one of the pioneers of the Woman movement in Bengal, indeed the wealthy Tagore family to which she belongs has done more to raise the standard of the Bengali than any other Indian family. Although brought up strictly on Zenana lines, educated behind the purdah, and married at a very youthful age, Mrs. Ghosal was encouraged both by her father and her husband to develop her unusual powers of mind and character. Her father, Devendra Nath Tagore, was the great religious reformer and founder of the Brahmo Somaj, a society which devotes itself to fostering and preserving all that is high and noble in the Vedic religion. From her father Mrs. Ghosal inherits her passionate love and admiration for her native land, her ardent desire to rouse it from its lethargy, to inspire it to progress, and to help it cast off the yoke of its debasing traditions.

One of her brothers, Rabindra Nath Tagore, is the foremost Indian poet of to-day, adored by his countrymen, and eulogised both in England and America, where his poems have been issued in translated form. Another brother, Dwijendra Nath, founded what is now one of the chief Bengali magazines, which he dedicated to Bharoti, the goddess of Learning; while her third brother, Satyendra Nath, after visiting