Page:The Poetical Works of Ram Sharma.djvu/30

 his .female relations committed repeated attempts at suicide.. On the third occasion he told her not to make the useless attempt as she was not destined to die even if she swallowed half a maund of opium. It will not be out of place to narrate an incident in this connection. One of his official superiors, a British military officer happened to come across an astrologer in the suite of an up-country Maharaja who. had come to Calcutta in one of his periodical visits. His wife was then enceinte, and just for fun he asked the astrologer to tell his art regarding his wife, which he did. It was carelessly noted down and forgotten. In due course his wife gave birth to a child. Sometime after, Ram Sharma, in whose presence the prediction had been made, felt curious about the result. He wrote to the gentleman and he wrote back saying that the Pandit (meaning the astrologer) was “the very d — I himself, his prediction had come out true to the letter.”

It is difficult to assign Ram Sharma ’s relative position in the world of letters. As we have already said he was a writer of powerful prose. But most of his productions were ephemeral, being contributions to news-papers and periodicals. His reply to R. S. MoncrifFs lecture on the Fidelity of Conscience, a brochure published in 'the y'ear 1866, by Wamaut & Co,, created quite a sensation at the time. Unfortunately, the only copy extant, is preserved in the British Museum in London. Digbys’ Nepal and India ’was practically his handi-work, for a very