Letters on India; To John Tremayne (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. Want of general knowledge on Indian subjects?Objects of present inquiry?Absolute necessity of acquiring the sympathy of the Natives ?Anomalous nature of our Indian Empire?Necessity and great difficulty of colonization?Value of India. A Few months ago, India was no more a subject of general conversation than Kamskatka or Siam are at present; it was not the fashion?and anybody who broached the subject was almost certain to be put down as a bore, or shunned as the hero of a tiger story. Now it is just the reverse: wherever you go, and whoever you meet, you hear of nothing else? the conversation of all classes, high and low, is of Brahmins, and Eajpoots, and sepoys continually. Everybody has now something to say on the subject of India; and free and enlightened constituencies, and mechanics' institutes, are daily and nightly mystified, by amateur statesmen and orators, on subjects that a year ago were scarcely tolerated by the hardy men of business to whom they were unavoidable inflictions. Such being the case, why should not you and I join the rank of "drivellers," as you would call them, and exchange a few ideas aboutIndia? We do not often spoil a good argument by too speedy an assent in each other's opinions; and happily this is a subject on which we can disagree till doomsday. The reason why everybody has hitherto avoided the subject of India is, that no general information existed in this country regarding it; either a man had been there and knew a great deal (or, what came to the same thing, thought he did), or he had not, and knew nothing at all. When such men met, the subject was mutually tabooed; the one did not care to throw his pearls before swine, and the other was naturally unwilling to expose his profound ignorance. I have never seen two such men mee...