Page:Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work.djvu/63

26 young Wordsworth, on looking at an old picture hanging from the walls, suddenly caught hold of his elder brother's arms, and requested him to lash the picture. His elder brother declining to comply with his inhuman request, he himself took up a whip, and with it lashed the picture several times. The reverend Doctor Peli was very naughty in his early years. He was a terror to his neighbours, who could not rest peacefully at night, for his depredations. Robert (afterwards Lord) Clive, the founder of the British empire in India, while only a little boy, used to ascend on the steeple of a very high church, and sit there composedly. Instances of such childish naughtiness on the part of men, who in after-life attained superiority and greatness, tend in a great measure to excite curious pleasurable feelings. The early part of the lives of many of these great men is conspicuously marked by freaks of childish naughtiness.

During his latter days, on one occasion, a gentleman paid Vidyasagar a friendly visit, accompanied with his young boy. Vidaysagar remarked that the boy would become a great man, at which the visitor smiled, saying that the boy was very naughty. Vidyasagar retorted as follows:—'Never mind, my friend, I too was very naughty in early days. I used to steal fruits from the orchards of my neighbours, and defile with soil other people's clothes left to dry in the sun. I was an object of terror to my neighbours.'