Through his precious help and guidance I early learned to read distinctly and understandingly almost all the Bengalee books containing the lives of the gods. The legends of Ramà, Krishto, the Ganges, etc., were my favorite studies. To do justice to his noble discretion, I should say that he never put any reading of a light character within my reach. I read over and over those religious books, which after a while grew so familiar that I could read the most of them merely by glancing at the page. The fact, that nearly half of my time was occupied in reading became known to the people, who would come to my house or invite me to theirs for the purpose. On holidays, I had to edify them by reading or reciting the sacred things.
Some elderly woman would conduct me to the inner department of a Hindoo house to read to the young women who are inaccessible to young men, and not being themselves taught to read or write are strangers to intellectual pleasures. My age and ability were remarkably adapted to the case, because though a little boy I could accomplish a great deal. I distinctly remember the congregation of women; one fanning me, a second holding a plate full of confectioneries, a third, an old woman, congratulating my mother for her having had such a child, etc. My father would occasionally let me accompany him in his official visits, that the religious zeal of his people might be quickened in hearing the voice of truth “revealed unto the babe.”
I was sent to a Patshala, or house of instruction, at the age of five; but I acquired more at home than anywhere else. Mental arithmetic, letter-writing, composition, etc. I learned from my father. Such was his untiring zeal to load my mind with all possible useful information, that my first acquaintance with a few English words was made through him. His priestly mouth, after imparting instruction in the Sanscrith, would teach me a few words in English, such as the pronouns of different persons and numbers; the word for God, man, hand, dog, etc., which he had picked up in some way, from those who studied English. But I am sorry to see now that the good man taught me two or three phrases in English with which the vulgar people swear. He of course did not know the evil; he thought what the Englishmen use must be delicate, proper, and useful.
Although not educated herself, my mother could teach me a great many things in the absence of my father. She knew the multiplication table up to how much eighteen times nineteen would be; also parables and proverbs, all by heart. She would comment upon and furnish hints on reading, explain difficult passages, and use the best materials in her conversation. She too, like my father, valued more our spiritual than intellectual accomplishments. Respect to age, love and devotion to the idols, honor to parents, faithfulness to conviction, strict observance of the customs of the country, were the themes she dwelt upon. These she would require obstinately, not willing to take off the veil and examine the substance within. How much I had to struggle against from her displeasure when the free tone of my thought and desires after reformation came into collision with her conservatism and adherence to superstitious institutions, I cannot tell. My position, in after years, proved diametrically opposite to her wishes in a great many respects, and she persistently labors, even up to to-day, to reconcile them, not making in the least any surrender on her part though. She exhorted me all the time to observe “every jot and tittle” pertaining to Hindooism, and would apply reason, persuasion, entreaty, and finally threats for the purpose. My oldest brother had not the chance of being under her care, nor of hearing her advice,—being absent from her most of the time,—and he has grown a self-willed, immoral young man. She laments very much over him, and says, “she would take twofold care over Joguth,” lest he too should slip away from the path of right, and disappoint her accordingly. Always she used to say, “He who comes last runs towards the direction in which the first has gone.” That she might not have occasion to suffer again on my account she built some walls around me.
I know no mother in our neighborhood who watched the steps of her sons so vigilantly as mine did. In fact the women of the adjacent houses often said that “they never dreamed of or prescribed such regulations for their children, and that they did not watch their babies so closely as my mother did her adults.” When anything unpleasant, wicked, or vicious happened in the place, she would take the opportunity to warn me, saying, “I hope, Joguth, you would die before you would become guilty of such things. I should feel anxious to leave you alone in this world, in case I should die first, much as it will be a happiness to me. Remember the saying, ‘Let go your life, but retain your honor.’” Her favorite mottoes were the following, which she would always hold before me. When we complained of any one, she would say, “If I am good, the world is good unto me.” In time of temptation, “Conquer within first, and you will conquer without.” When any one is discontented, and cannot live in peace with his brethren, her motto is, “Peace accommodates nine persons in one room, but discord puts them in nine separate ones.” Speaking of quarrelsome persons, her saying was, “She who is naturally quarrelsome would quarrel with her work-basket.” Of those who bring discord, “Wicked man and mouse break; good man and needle connect.” Beside these she had other sayings: “Where there is right, there is victory.” “Walk in the way of righteousness, and you will receive your meal even in the midnight.” “If you want to be the greatest, be the lowest.”
I have observed before that she would watch me on every side. She did not feel satisfied with merely prescribing regulations for me, but with strictness would see them carried out. Sometimes she would put some false charge upon me, in order to teach me a lesson. “Joguth, were you quarreling with the boy?” so saying, she would paint the evil of fighting in dark colors. I was not allowed to dress gay like other young men of my age, nor even to part my hair: “Comb your hair simply; look clean but not foppish.” She would comment upon my mode of walking, smiling, and talking, and give some sharp rebukes if there was any fault in them.
One evening I came very near the kitchen where the women were, walking so slow that none could hear sounds of my steps. To my utter confusion she said, “I am afraid of you, Joguth; what kind of walking was that? You came in, giving no warning with your steps, so slow they were! O Joguth, gentlemen do not do so; thieves do. Were you practising how the thieves walk?” When at home I was not allowed to talk to my aunt, or brother’s wife even. My mother had great fear of young women, saying that man could not corrupt them unless they yield; so more than a dozen times she begged them not to speak to her Joguth.
She does not find any pleasure in gossip and slander, and avoids the place where such are indulged. Her counsel is, “Speak good of others, and bring their evil before you simply for the purpose of deriving admonition from them. We are all liable to make blunders. ‘The saints may err,’ is the Sanscrith saying. Our talking of the imperfections and immoralities of others is just as ridiculous as the censure of the sieve, which cried out, ‘Brother needle, why, there is a hole in your body.’”
In her daily occupation and habits she is worthy of our imitation. She is the last to go to bed and the first to leave it. You awake in the midnight and you will find her at work or whispering hymns; rise early, and you will see she has gone to the Ganges to bathe. Inaction is an abomination to her: she would urge all to do something innocently profitable. She hates debt, and fears it as death itself. At the first call she would pay her debts, even if her children should suffer for it. She believes that he who dies a debtor will have to settle his dues after death; and to confirm this doctrine she points out the trees that grow one upon the other, such as a banian tree upon the trunk of a palm; explaining, thus, that the latter did not pay his debts, so after death he has become a tree, and his creditor grows on his head in the form of a banian. Such is an imperfect sketch of my dear mother, under whose care and supervision my early days were directed. Any good thing I have in me was the gift of this noble woman; she laid it in my heart in its rude state, and a Teacher wiser and more unerring than she has polished it afterwards. May God judge and reward her according to the light she has. To whom much is given of them much shall be required. God grant that before she breathes her last breath, she may know that in deserting the idol gods her son has not committed an unpardonable sin!