Page:The Spoilt Child.djvu/18

Rh to our recollection the treasures of wit. He seems to be familiar with, Fielding, , , , , and other masters of fiction."

Other critics of the day compared him to a or a Dickens.

Mr., in his "Modern Aryan Languages of India," writes:— "Babu Peary Chand Mitter, who writes under the nom de plume of Tek Chand Thakur, has produced the best novel in the language 'Alaler Gharer Dulál.' He has had many imitators, and certainly stands high as a novelist. His story might fairly claim to be ranked with some of the best comic novels in our own language for wit, spirit, and clever touches of nature. He puts into the mouth of each of his characters the appropriate method of talking, and thus exhibits to the full the extensive range of vulgar idioms which his language possesses."

In an introductory essay on Bengali novels, in his translation of Babu Bunkim Chandra Chatterjee's novel "Kopal Kundala," Mr. writes:— "The position and character of Bengali literature is peculiar. A backward people have, so to speak, rushed into civilization at one bound: old customs and prejudices have been displaced, uno ictu, by a state of enlightenment and advanced ideas. The educated classes have suddenly found themselves face to face with the richest gems of Western learning and literature. The clash of widely divergent stages of civilization, the juxtaposition of the most advanced thought with comparative barbarism, has produced results which, though perhaps to be expected, are somewhat curious. If one tries to close a box with more than it can hold the lid may be unhinged,—new wine may burst old bottles. The colliding forces of divergent stages of civilization have produced a literature that for want of a better