Page:Twelve men of Bengal in the nineteenth century (1910).djvu/167

Rh him apart as one of the moving spirits of the day.

Claiming descent from the ancient Sen Kings of Bengal, the family from which Keshub sprang had been resident for some generations at Garifa, now known as Gouripur, some twenty-four miles above Calcutta. His great grandfather, Gokul Chandra Sen of the Vaidiya caste was a poor, honest, hard-working villager, respected by his fellows but of no particular distinction. It was his son Ram Kamal Sen, Keshub's grandfather, who first raised the family to a position of dignity and affluence. He was one of that first little company of Hindus in Bengal who were quick to take advantage of all that western civilisation offered by adapting themselves to western culture and western modes of thought. Yet there was little in his earliest years to give promise of the brilliant career that was later to be his. With little education, learning English at a small Hindu school up the river where there were no dictionaries and no text books, he was forced from an early age to earn his own living. He began at the very lowest rung of the literary ladder, obtaining a post as assistant type-setter at the Asiatic Society's press on a monthly salary of only eight rupees. For eight years he plodded on in this humble post, throwing all his energies into the work and doing meanwhile all that lay in his power to improve his education and prepare himself