THE SLAVE GIRL OF AGRA
the grand old Epics of India—is there anything we have produced in our times which will stand beside them?"
"Nothing, sire. Our Court poetry blooms like an exotic flower for a day and then withers. The ancient poetry of Persia and India lives through ages like a mighty Deodar of the Himalayas, striking its roots deep into the everlasting rocks."
"And yet I sometimes think that a great Empire like ours would leave some worthy memorials in literature, some great song which would perpetuate these times."
"This great age, sire, will leave memorials in literature, not in the language of the Court, but in the tongues of the people. The language of the Court—the Persian—is the spoken tongue of a few. Our Court poetry is like a pretty flower which we grow on a marble vase and admire for a day. But the poetry of nations is like a vast wood, which spreads over the broad and fertile earth and gives shade and shelter to the people."
"But I have heard, Abul Fazel, that the Hindus speak and write the Persian tongue as well as we, and that the late Raja Todar Mull spread the use of the Persian in our Courts and offices throughout India."
"The Hindus, sire, are an intellectual race, and will quickly learn any language in which the business of Courts is conducted. But the aspirations of their national mind are ever expressed in the tongues which they imbibe with their mothers' milk."
"Have they composed such poems in their own tongues then in our times?"
"Your Majesty knows that the songs of Sur Das
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