THAT
EURASIAN
BY
ALEPH BEY
❧
F. TENNYSON NEELY
PUBLISHER
CHICAGO NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1895
BY
F. TENNYSON NEELY
PREFACE.
In a letter accompanying the manuscript of the following book were these
paragraphs:
“Some years ago, while traveling in Southern France, I met with an
accident that nearly ended my life. I was tenderly nursed to health in a
family for which I formed the highest respect and a lasting friendship.
Some years later I met the widow with her beautiful grown up children.
One of the sons was devoted to science, the other to literature, and
both becoming known in the world, while the daughter was engaged in
landscape painting, ‘until,’ as she said with a most bewitching smile,
‘the right man comes along.’
“Talking of her husband, the widow said that he had left some manuscript
which I might like to see. She then brought me a bundle neatly bound up
in tape. Looking it over, I suggested its publication, and she gave it
to me unreservedly to do with it as I thought best. I have not erased a
line or altered a word. It is an autobiography of undeserved shame and
sorrow, as well as an earnest effort of well doing. It is a pity that
such a life should have been, and I trust that its lessons will be
heeded by those who need them most.”
The word Eurasian is made of Eur, from Europe, and Asian, from Asia, and
applied to the children of a European and an Asiatic and to their
descendants, of whom there is a large class in India.
THAT EURASIAN
ALEPH BEY
Neely’s International Library,
Fine Cloth Binding, $1.25
A prominent newspaper editor of London, England, in a note to the author
of this work says, “I am impressed with the freedom and freshness of the
literary style, and am in arms against the majestic abuses about which
it inveighs as if incidentally and without any grand motherly didactics.
You arrest attention at once with the desertion of the Pyari by the
Sahib; the treatment is pathetic and intense.”
A well-known Chicago editor says, “A powerfully written book, though
without any evidence of straining after effect. It should be of especial
interest to a wide circle of readers, as it deals with a new subject in
a masterly manner. The life history of the offspring of an English
father and a Mohammedan mother affords the author opportunity to give a
vast amount of information about the doings of the British in India, and
the results of the contact between the two races, with the peculiarities
of each, and of their offspring, which may well open the eyes of the
world to a view of the enormities that have been perpetrated in the
far-off land under the plea of modern civilization. Simple justice to
the work and its author requires that it should have a large sale.”
“A work of decidedly unique character, is ‘THAT EURASIAN’ just published
by F. Tennyson Neely. It deals with a class of people which has
heretofore seldom figured in our literature, viz., that large family of
half European and half Hindu parentage so numerous in British India. The
abuses and indignities to which these people are subjected have long
been well known to those who have given any attention to the condition
of affairs in British India during the past half century, but the
general public is strangely ignorant of all this. The many startling
revelations made by the author of this book, who is an European long
resident in India, will be received with something like wonderment and
horror. We can only hint at the extent of these revelations; the
legalized vice, the cruel oppression of a wretched peasantry, the
shocking abuse of native women by Europeans, and other gigantic
enormities are fully and fearlessly exposed in this remarkable
book—remarkable none the less for the author’s keen and caustic
criticism of the Government that fosters such abuses, as for the grace
and elegance of his literary style, and the lucidity of his thought.”
For Sale by all Booksellers or Sent Prepaid on Receipt of Price by the
Publisher,
F. Tennyson Neely,
CHICAGO. NEW YORK.
THAT EURASIAN.
CHAPTER I.
On the southern coast of France, upon ground overlooking one of the
beautiful bays of the Mediterranean, stood a chateau. It was nearly a
mile distant from the coast, the land gradually descending toward the
blue waters of the sea. The main and center part of the building was a
relic of the ancient feudal times when strength and massiveness were
characteristic of the architecture. The additions had been constructed
from time to time, to suit the taste and convenience of the different
owners of the property. The old park impressed one with a feeling of
reverence for its solidity and quaintness, while the more modern parts
added beauty and grace, making the whole consonant with the present age
in comfort, luxury and utility. The grounds were spacious. An immense
enclosure with its velvet green verdure, was broken here and there by
patriarchal trees, of great variety. It was a park of orchards and
gardens for use as well as beauty. A broad avenue, lined on either side
with trees and trellised vines, led down to the sea where pleasure boats
and yachts were moored. This avenue, with the blue waters as a
background, formed a most enchanting view from the upper balcony of the
castle. The quiet stillness of the place was its greatest charm. In the
days of summer there was scarcely a sound to be heard save that of the
bees and insects among the flowers, the songs of the birds in the trees,
the gentle murmur of the fountains or the sound like that from invisible
æolian harps, as the light breezes played among the branches.
Occasionally a storm from the loud resounding sea added grandeur to the
place. The drives, the walks, every tree and flowering shrub showed the
careful attention of the gardeners. Every visitor was in raptures over
the beauty of the place, and could say with truth, “If there is a
paradise on earth it is here.”
The interior of the chateau corresponded with its surroundings. The
halls were adorned with solid, grand antique furniture, statuary, and
paintings, the accumulation of centuries, acquired by the wealth and
taste of a long line of the ancestry of the present occupants, while the
rest of the building was embellished in more modern style, showing
excellent judgment and culture. The library was one of which a nation
might be proud, composed of almost priceless old books, and the best of
more modern authors. In all the apartments there seemed to be nothing
wanting and not a thing too much. There was no crowding or confusion,
nothing cheap or tawdry, but all in harmony with the massive building,
and its noble park, showing the culture of its possessors.
The present occupants, a gentleman and his wife, of excellent lineage,
of wealth, education, and most refined tastes, one could scarcely tell
whether they were made for the place or it was made for them, as both
and all were in such delightful harmony. They often had guests, but of
the most select kind. There were several beautiful children, of whom I
was one or would have been, that is, if this fancy picture was a reality
and I had had a choice in the matter of my birth, those would have been
my parents and there the place where I would have been born if such
events could have been decided by myself. Had the subject been referred
to me, I would have been very judicious in the choice of my parents, for
it is better than any amount of wealth to have a good father and mother.
Alas! and more’s the pity that so few of us are consulted about our
birth, the most important event in our lives; we are brought into life
without consideration, and, impelled by fate, are thrown upon our
destinies for good or evil, and yet made responsible for what results
from our inherited tendencies and circumstances.
Some one, I think a Frenchman, has said that we should select our
parents with the greatest possible judgment. I thoroughly agree with
him. So much depends on this, yet, as I have said, since very few of us
are consulted about this matter, we have to accept the situation,
whether it be in a palace or a hut. There is no use opposing the
inevitable, still I cannot help finding fault in that we are made
responsible for much that we could not in any possible way prevent. Many
a one is environed, burdened and crushed by some hereditary impedimenta,
and is blamed and cursed through life for that about which he was not
consulted and from which he could not escape.
Before the law and human judgment all people are declared equal. Are
they? Should not allowance be made for pangs of nature and taints of
blood? Yet whatever men may do, I have faith that, if God is our judge,
He will regard us for what we might have been as well as by what we are.
As might be supposed, the above is only a flight of fancy. Descending, I
will now enter upon the real story of my existence.