Page:Ramtanu Lahiri, Brahman and Reformer - A History of the Renaissance in Bengal.djvu/160

 longer. The fever raged far and wide, and having almost depopulated Jessore it entered Nadia, and there did its work of havoc.

On Kesava’s death Ramtanu’s responsibilities greatly increased. On him fell the duty of maintaining the whole family — a duty very onerous to a man of his means; but nevertheless he was fully alive to it, and determined that, to support his old parents and younger brothers, he would himself, if necessary, forgo every comfort.

It was at this time that he married for the third time. His matrimonial connections before this had not proved happy. His first wife, whom he had married when a boy, had died in childbed. His second marriage also had been broken by the hand of death three years after its consummation. This marriage had been the cause of much uneasiness to him, for his father-in-law, having a deep-rooted antipathy against his attitude towards the Hindu religion and its customs, had sedulously prevented all intercourse between the husband and the wife. It was this painful circumstance that Ram Gopal Ghosh thus alluded to in his diary: “4th April 1839. But our conversation did not take on a personal aspect till we touched the subject of women. We spoke of the peculiarities of each other’s wives. Poor Ramtanu appeared to be worried about his wife. But I should not indulge myself in writing the secrets of my friends in this book.”

Let us after this digression once more draw the reader’s attention to matters affecting the native society in Calcutta and its neighbourhood. Dwarkanath Tagore returned from England at the close of 1842. The famous Mr George Thomson came with him. This Mr Thomson was a great orator, and the stirring speeches delivered