Married to an ugly girl. A lost child and sore- ness of heart 760 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. [Chap. so angry at this behaviour that he gave him a sound thrashing with his shoes. Young I¢vara sulkily bore the punishment and shutting himself up in a small room, did not come out for the whole day. His father Hari Mohan Gupta not only gave him a step-mother whom he did not like, but married him, when only fifteen, to Durgamani Devi, an ugly idiotic girl who stammered in her speech. The reason for his father’s favouring this girl was that her pedigree was noble,—a point which at one time carried high favour with Hindu fathers. Icvara Chandra’s career in school soon came to a close, and he became notorious for his negligence in his studies and for his rowdisms. All gave him up for lost, and he had no better opinion of himself, He was unfortunate in life,—in his early years as a motherless child, and in manhood as the husband of a wife who was no companion, but rather a troublesome burden, always keeping afresh a dis- appointment than which in youth nothing can be greater. The result is the soreness of heart and _ spirit of satire which characterise his poems. He be- came a misanthrope and took revenge upon the world by jeering unsparingly at all classes of people. He found no happiness in the nuptial tie, and Babu Bankima Chandra Chatterjee, his distinguished bio- erapher writes of him :—
- He was lacking in that education of soul
which the company of women gives toa man; he
- যে শিক্ষা আীলোকের নিকট পাইতে হয়, তাহা তাহার
হয় নাই; যে উন্নতি স্সীলোকের সংসর্গে হয়, স্ত্রীলোকের প্রতি
aE gr
