পাতা:মাইকেল মধুসূদন দত্তের জীবন-চরিত - যোগীন্দ্রনাথ বসু.pdf/১৯৫

Nare-ert SVIS মহাত্মা বেথুনের ন্যায় মধুসূদনের বন্ধুগণও তাঁহাকে বাঙ্গালা ভাষার অনুশীলনে আহবান করিতেছিলেন । * তাহার প্ৰিয়-সুহৃদ গেীরদাস बांबू, যদিও নিজে, বাঙ্গালা ভাষায় বিশেষ পারদর্শী ছিলেন না, তথাপি মাতৃভাষার অনুশীলন ভিন্ন যে কোন গ্ৰন্থকারের পক্ষে স্থায়ী প্ৰতিষ্ঠালাভের সম্ভাবনা নাই, তাহা বুঝিতেন । সেই জন্য তিনি, বাঙ্গালা ভাষায় কাব্যরচনার জন্য, মধুসুদনকে সৰ্ব্বদা অনুরোধ করিতেন। বেথুনের পত্রের উল্লেখ করিয়া তিনি তঁহাকে লিখিয়াছিলেন ;- "His advice is the best you can adopt. It is an advice that 1 have always given you and will din into your ears all my life. "The taste and talents you have cultivated” would rebound much to the honor and advantage of your country, "if you will employ them in improving the standard and adding to the stock of your your duty, the English language will become to Bengal what, long ago, Greek and Latin were to England ; and the ideas which you gain through English, learning will, by your help, gradually be diffused by a vernacular literature through the masses of your countrymen. The language of Bengal is now as rude and uncultivated as that of England was five hundred years ago. It is your taste and your learning by which it is to be cultivated and adorned. This is the language which I have constantly held to those young men in Calcutta, who have brought for my opinion, with intelligible pride, their English compositions in prose and verse. I have told them, while awarding the praise that I have thought due to many of these productions, that if they would follow my advice, they would not seek for distinction by such channels : but, if their talents and disposition led them to authorship, they would attain a more lasting, reputation, either by original compositions in their own language, or by transfusing into it the master-pieces of English literature. There is great glory in store for those who will be the first to achieve success in this path." Nà)