It was while Professor W. Minto was editor of the
"Examiner," that one day in August, 1876, in the very heart of the dead
season for books, I happened to be in the office of that newspaper, and
was upbraiding the whole body of publishers for issuing no books worth
reviewing. At that moment the postman brought in a thin and sallow
packet with a wonderful Indian postmark on it, and containing a most
unattractive orange pamphlet of verse, printed at Bhowanipore, and
entitled "A Sheaf gleaned in French Fields, by Toru Dutt." This shabby
little book of some two hundred pages, without preface or introduction,
seemed specially destined by its particular providence to find its way
hastily into the waste-paper basket. I remember that Mr. Minto thrust it
into my unwilling hands, and said "There! see whether you can't make
something of that." A hopeless volume it seemed, with its queer type,
published at Bhowanipore, printed at the Saptahiksambad Press! But when
at last I took it out of my pocket, what was my surprise and almost
rapture to open at such verse as this:--
"Still barred thy doors! The far East glows,
The morning wind blows fresh and free.
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