Page:Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work.djvu/209

 s, yet he felt delicacy in receiving the money, simply because, he thought, it would be contrary to the rules of friendship. CPAPTERCHAPTER [sic] XI.

In 1847, Vidyasagar first published his Vetala Panchavingsati, a translation of the Hindi "Vaitala-Painchisi." It was compiled at the instance of Mr. Marshall for the use of the students of the Fort William College. There is also a similar book in Sanskrit, titled the "Vetala-Panchavingsaka", by Sivadas Bhatta. It is not known for certain why Vidyasagar translated the Hindi book instead of the Sanskrit.

In his translation, Vidyasagar discarded all obscene portions of the original. The language of the book is plain, sweet and beautiful, though the use of copious long compound words in the first edition had made it rather a little jarring. But this defect was rectified in subsequent editions. Those, who are truly great, never feel ashamed to make right their errors. When Johnson saw that the language of "The Rambler" was bombast, he tried to remedy the defect in his next book, "The Lives of the Poets."