Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/972

928 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. [ Chap, women of ill fame sat together with a clear con- science, and began to eat various preparations of | meat and other dainties with profuse quantity of wine.” The Pundits took up Bengali prose under the direction of European writers of Bengali; and হি under their direction also the former had to come aspect. down from high flown bombasts to colloquial sim- plicity. The best works produced by the Pandits during this epoch of our literature are charac- terised, on the one hand, by ascent to obscure heights and, on the other, by descent to slang ;— from the cloudy region of philosophical dissertations to the housewife’s harangue with her husband on the question of the preparation of cakes. There was no via media. When the theme soared high, it kecame mystic,—the phalanx of compound words scarcely left a loop-hole for the ordinary reader’s understanding to penetrate into it ; but when it came down from these heights it grovelled in the mire of vulgarity; street scenes were described in terse, forcible but exceedingly corrupt style; all limits of decency were exceeded on,—coarse and flat jokes passed for humour, and the Bengali prose of the period presented a seriocomic aspect which puzzles us in its seriousness and almost repels when it tries to amuse. The good But the advent of the Pandits into the field of res . . . = ult Bengali, though associated in the earher stages of its modern prose with uncouth efforts verging on বেশ্ত। সাধারণ তাবতেই নির্মলান্তঃকরণে একাসনে বিবিধ মদ, মাংস প্রভৃতি নান। দ্রবা তোজন কবিলেন।?' Babuvilas, Page 38,