of his memory, and lend to the model the virtues and vices of other characters he remembered. He knew what would suit the model, and knew where to set it. In this manner sprang up such human beasts as Naderchand, Ghatiram and Bholachand. When we consider the numerousness of such creations and their variety we cannot help feeling surprised at the width of his experience.
But mere experience takes the artist nowhere. There cannot be any creations without sympathy3, the artists's capacity for feeling into a subject. Not only is Dinabandhu's social experience surprising, his sympathy, too, is exceptionally keen. There is none who realizes as much as he did the sorrows of the poor and the miserable. That was why he could create such a Torapa, such a Raicharan, such an Aduri or such a Reboti. Yet his keen sense of sympathy was not for the poor alone. It was all-pervasive. Dinabandhu was a man of faultless character, but he could realize the sorrows of the characterless. Dinabandhu made no display of his purity. For better, for worse, it was this quality of all-pervasive sympathy that took him to all places, amongst all types of people, virtuous or sinful. Like a fireproof stone unburnt by fire he could keep his purity unsullied while sitting in a hellfire of vices. Even though so pure in heart, he could, by virtue of his sympathetic capacity, realize the miseries of a sinner like the sinner himself. He could realize the sorrows of Nimchand Dutt, the despairing drunkard, whose joys of life had been dried up and whose education had proved futile. He could realize the pain of Rajib Mukhopadhya, a man who had lost all hopes of marriage. He could realize the mental agony of Gopinath for his surveillance to the Indigo Planters. I knew Dinabandhu particularly well; all the aspects of his character were known to me. I do doubt if I have ever seen a person who felt into the sorrows of other people in the way Dinabandhu did. His works bear this out.
Dinabandhu's sympathy, was however not for sorrow alone, he had an equal degree of sympathy for all sentiments: happiness, sorrow, anger or hatred. His sympathy was for Aduri's happiness in her bauti4 and paicha5; his sympathy was for the fury of Torapa; his symyathy was for Bholanath's joy in the glad cause that prevented him from visiting his father-in-law's house. All artists must have this keen sympathy, else none can aspire to an artistic height. But there is a distinction between Dinabandhu and the
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