Page:Ramtanu Lahiri, Brahman and Reformer - A History of the Renaissance in Bengal.djvu/74

 in his autobiography thus laments his own shortcomings in this respect: “It seems that all the pleasures of life have vanished with my youth. I fly from those scenes of enjoyment which fascinated me in my boyhood; and even if I eagerly attempt to make them my own, I miserably fail. That Sriban, that Lalbag [the garden of red flowers] are still there; but no longer do I care to visit them. Their very names I seem to have forgotten.”

Our hero’s boyhood was also spent in rambling in fields over which Nature had spread a rich verdure. It is known that a large portion of Lower Bengal has been formed by alluvial deposits, that places now teeming with inhabitants were once under the sea, and the cities like Tamluk, now at a considerable distance from it, then stood on its shore. Not only have the limits of the southern parts of the province been enlarged by the uprising of the soil, but its productive power has been much increased. Lower Bengal is called by Europeans the “Garden of the World” and the banks of Mother Ganges fascinate the eye with their luxuriant vegetation. In the centre of this “Garden of the World” stands Nadia; and young Ramtanu delighted to visit its verdant scenes.

But while he was enjoying these pleasures, his parents were very anxious about his future. The moral atmosphere of Krishnagar at the time was tainted. Pious men like Ramkrishna found the city badly wanting in those virtues that they desired to see displayed in their families. We cannot help weeping, when the fact is forced upon us, that the same Hindu race that the Greek and the Chinese travellers who visited India before the Muhammadan conquest, or even before the Moslem rule had been firmly established, admired as brave, truthful, frank, and hospitable, became so degenerate in a few centuries of foreign rule. The cause of this degeneration