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1875–1882

My second visit to England—exclusion from the English Bar—return to India, 1875—educational work; my joy in it—Mr. A. M. Bose.

As I have already observed, I was furnished with a copy of the report of the Commission by the Government of India, and I was informed that they had recommended my dismissal. I made up my mind to proceed to England and to lay my case before the authorities of the India Office. I left Calcutta about the end of March, 1874, and arrived in London about the middle of April. I at once placed myself in communication with the India Office. The attitude of some of the officials on whom I called was distinctly cold and unsympathetic. It seemed to me that they were unwilling to go behind the report of the Commission or give me a further hearing, and within a few weeks of my arrival I was officially informed that I had been dismissed from the Indian Civil Service.

One chapter of my life was now closed. I had fought a hard battle and lost it. The whole of my official prospects were blasted. The recollection of the emotions then roused is still vivid in my mind. I felt that my dismissal was a relief. It was indeed a crushing, staggering blow, but it meant absolution from a strain upon body and mind which had wellnigh become intolerable. I was indeed prepared for my fate; I might almost be said to have been expecting it; and when, on returning home to my lodgings in Kentish Town, from a dinner-party at Mr. B. Mookerjee’s house, I read the official letter, lying on my table, under the gas-lamp dimly burning, informing me of my dismissal, I spontaneously exclaimed, ‘The bitterness of death is past and gone’. From April, 1873, to April, 1874, this fight had been going on, first with Mr. Sutherland, and then between the Government and myself; and to me it was a real relief when it was all over and I knew where I stood.

Not for a moment did I lose heart in this supreme crisis. Now and then, indeed, I thought of her who in a distant land would share the blow, but who, I knew, would not bend or reel under it. I closed my eyes upon the past and resolutely set them upon the future, which I painted with a hue as radiant as circumstances permitted. I was already a student of the Middle Temple and

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