( 3 ) his leading moral characteristic,-independence. That is : quality rare in all times at all places, especially rare in Bengal, and becoming rarer every day. But Babu Bankim Chandra had it to perfection ; not that fussy, histrionic hauteur which brings a man into difficulties and does no good, but a silenz, determined firmness, which, while it surrenders not the will, avoids occasions of conflict. To Indian and Englishman alike he was unbending, not in pompous antagonism but in the easiest and most natural of ways. There is no reason to regret that circumstances drove Babu Bankim Chandra to the drudgery of ossicial life. Work, the active work of life, as distinct from the secluded passive industry of the student and the man of letters, is hardly ever an evil, often bracing. The literary man works with ideas, and ideas are never more true than when they are obtained from life, or corrected by it. Besides, the alternation of contemplation with action give the pause necessary to mental health and furnishes leisure for forming new images and storing up energy. Each is a rest relatively to the other. Furthermore, the end of Man, as has been said from ancient times, is an Action and not a Thought. If Bankim Babu has by his judgment and legal knowledge prevented an "innocent man from being brought to the gallows or a murderer from escaping it, he should be held to have done at least as much good to the world as any one could do by writing a movel. From no point of view, therefore, are we disposed -2 be sorry for Bankim Babu's connection with the realities of life. Literature has been no loser by "; possibly it has been a gainer. It excluded the necessity of turning out “potboilers;" it widened the writer's experience and stimulgted his ideas; it saved him from the dissipations of journalism and the coarse competition of a professional career; it brought him dignity. That a gentleman of powers so considerable
