Page:Calcutta Review (1925) Vol. 16.djvu/269

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Step aside ye crowned heads! Step-aside ye proud peers and belted knights! Stand back all mortal world and for one moment hush! Let from the frail frame a Great Soul pass away in peace to the abode of Eternal Bliss!

Bharatbarsa has produced long lances and sharp swords as any country in the world. Her sons have defended their own and punished usurpers with might and main, in fight, fair and free. Her daughters had in their hearts, along with the milk of maternal tenderness, wine enough to inebriate the souls of the sterner sex with the spirit of chivalry and gallantry. Superhuman feats of physical strength have been performed by men to win the hands of fair princesses. But the heroes of this country never won the green laurel of immortality dipped in a brother’s blood.

The standard of heroism in this land of ours was and is still gauged by the extent of self-conquest a person has achieved and not from an inventory of possessions he has been or is able to wrench off from his neighbours. Not the extermination of others but renunciation of Self makes Heroes in Bharat.

The British era in India has turned out thousands of graduates from English-made Universities, and Chittaranjan was only one of them. Hundreds of successful lawyers lived, and still live and flourish and Mr. C. R. Das was only one of the constellation. Charity is not a virtue but a habit with the people of Hindustan, and deeds of benevolence are not only sung in ballads or handed down through legends, but the ink is not yet dry on the papers on which are recorded the munificence of Palit and Rashbehary to the count