Page:Ramtanu Lahiri, Brahman and Reformer - A History of the Renaissance in Bengal.djvu/202

 see the meaning I gave to the passage was just the same as that given by Umes Babu [who subsequently became the Principal of the College, and still lives at Krishnagar]; but, as my knowledge of English is much inferior to his, I could not make myself as clear as he has done. There are very few Indians so learned in English as he.”

Ramtanu was above the weakness of pretending to be omniscient. He had no false pride. If he did not understand a passage in the text-book he simply said so, and promised to be better informed the next day.

We must here notice the death of Mr Lahiri’s father in 1857, and the birth of his second and third sons, Sharat Kumar and Basanta Kumar, in Bhadra, 1859, and in Magh, 1862, respectively. Babu Ram Krishna Lahiri had received a great shock from his son’s renunciation of popular Hinduism, from which he never recovered, and to which he at last succumbed.

During Mr Lahiri’s official career at Rassapagla, at Barisal, and for the third time at Krishnagar, four new forces came into existence in Bengal. These were, as mentioned before, the rise of Kesava Chandra Sen as a reformer, the appearance of Bankim Chandra in the field of Bengali fiction, of Dinabandhu Mitra as a dramatist, and of Dwarkanath Vidyabhusan as a journalist. These four men had a great hold on the people’s hearts in Bengal. But the chief of them was Kesava Chandra. We will give a short account of the lives and doings of these great men in the Appendix; and so we will say no more about them at present.