advice is Read, Read, Read. Teach your ears the new tune and then you will find out what it is.
Please tell Gour I have sent a copy of Tilottama for him to his cousin, at the Asiatic Society, not knowing where he himself is posted at present.—পৃ. ৩২০-২২
৭। ১৪ জুলাই ১৬০ তারিখে মধুসূদন রাজনারায়ণ বসুকে—
You are welcome to review Tilottama when you like. By the time you propose to do so, I think, the book will be running through a second edition. But no matter, your opinion, especially, when deliberately given, ought to influence a certain class of our people. Perhaps you will laugh at the idea, but I do assure you that since the publication of the book your name has been frequently in men’s mouths. Ask Rajendra. Many have said “O, that Raj Narain Bose of Midnapur is a clever fellow. He seems to appreciate this book warmly. He is right!”
...Talking about wine and all vicious indulgences, though by no means a saint and teetotal prude. I never drink when engaged in writing poetry; for, if I do, I can never manage to put two ideas together! There is not a line in the Tilottama written under the inspiration of even such a mild thing as a glass of rosy sherry or beer.—পৃ. ৩২৪-২৫।
৮। মধুসূদন রাজনারায়ণ বসুকে—
I cannot sufficiently thank you for your most welcome letter. Believe me, you endear yourself more to me by the candid manner in which you point out the defects of the Poem than by the praise (and it is splendid by Jove!) you bestow on it. The idea of fixed lightning, though hackneyed, is not bad. The whole beauty of the passage (in Book II 19—40) depends upon it—that is to say, if there be any beauty in it at all. You are unjust to Indra. He is a very heroic fellow, but he cannot resist “Fate.” Perhaps, your partiality for the two brothers has slightly embittered your feelings against the poor king of the gods. I myself like those two fellows, and it was once my intention to have added another Book to place them more conspicuously before the reader, but I did not like to entail a larger expense on my friend, Babu Jotindra Mohan Tagore. Indeed, I wanted to stop at the end of the Third Book—but he in a manner insisted that I should finish the story. You must
