सिद्धान्तदर्पण (महामहोपाध्याय सामन्त चन्द्रशेखर सिंह - नग्न-नेत्र खगोल वेध एवं गणित महाकोश)

Introduction xxvii
him endure the constant infliction. Even those who
might be expected to know better will not scruple
to ply him with absurd questions and waste the few
moments left to him between the beginning of one
series of daily devotions and the end of another.
If he is a practical mathematician, no one is so
unpractical in worldly matters as he is. Simple as a
child, he depends upon his servants for his
guidance. Neither is he well off, in the sense of
possessing a competency in life; and, related as he
is to a Raja, he is unable to make both ends meet.
A retinue of attendant hereditarily maintained in
his family has to be supported in the usual manner.
The small income of Rs.500 a year from a few small
villages, and a quantity of food grains from his
tenants, are hardly sufficient in these days of high
prices. Poverty has pinched him in his old age and
has compelled him to incur a large debt.
The general public does not care to know his
incomings and outgoings, his privations and
star-gazings. “What has he done after all ?” - asks
the impatient critic. To him, I would say, is it not
enough to find in this man a true lover of science
who regardless of other peoples unfavourable
opinion of his work their taunts and dissusions, has
devoted his whole life to the one pursuit of
knowledge; who has shown the way to original
research amidst difficulties serious enough to
dishearten men in better circumstances who has
employed his time usefully, instead of frittering it
away like the usual run of men of his rank, on a
work which guides the daily routine of millions of
his countrymen ?
I do not pretend to express any opinion on the
literary merits of his work but it appears to me that