In the evening I was amused at a little incident. We were taking our
coffee after dinner in front of the fire in the drawing room. Cockear
was crouched on the rug before us watching every motion and with that
ear of his erect as usual. Said Mr. Percy, “Cockear! you honest fellow,
come to me,” and with a spring the dog was on Mr. Percy’s lap. Mr. Percy
looking into his bright beautiful eyes said, “Cockear, I believe you
have a soul and are immortal. I know you would talk to me if only that
mouth of yours was of a different shape, but I will say in that upright
ear of yours that you are one of the best witnesses I ever had. I wish
the witnesses in my court were only half, or even one-quarter as
truthful as you are.”
Then we had another talk and laugh over the outcome of our scheme and
the ludicrous incidents in it. Then he fell to talking over the
deliberate falsehoods of the natives.
“I often wonder that there is any justice to any one, for who can
decide, even with the utmost care what is truth when there is so much
falsehood and perjury on both sides? I often think of Pilate and can
sympathize with him when he asked “What is truth?” I have a case of
murder in court. A score or more of Muhamedans swear on the Koran that
the man is guilty, and as many Hindus swear by the water of the Ganges
that the man is innocent. What am I to do? I have sometimes thought in
such a case I might as well count the flies on the punkah over my head,
and if the number be even, let the accused go free, if odd, sentence him
to be hung. And I think the decision by the flies would be as just as by
the evidence of the witnesses.
“The natives all acknowledge this habit of lying and perjury and seem to
think nothing of it, take it as a matter of course. Why, I am told that
the groups of trees in my cutchery compound are called two ana trees,
four ana trees and so on up to two rupees, according to the size of the
bribes the witnesses are willing to take; so when the parties in court
want witnesses, they go to the different trees in proportion to their
ability to pay and get what they desire.
“Some of these natives talk of representative government. Who would be
the representatives? What would they represent? As a whole people they
have no country. I never yet saw a patriot among all I have met. They
have not the remotest idea of what that word means, what the love of
country is. If they fight, it is because they are hired to do so for the
sake of plunder, or to kill those who oppose their wishes, but they
would never fight and die as patriots for the love of their country; and
those who talk the most, would be the last to take up arms. If we were
to leave the country, within a month all would be confusion. They would
be robbing each other and cutting one another’s throats worse than
pirates. The more educated know this, and while they want to become the
rulers, they would like us to remain and be their protectors. It is the
jealousy of the different tribes that is the greatest strength of the
English in India. They cannot trust each other for they know too well
what would happen if left to themselves. Just think of it. Here is this
Tahsildar, from one of their old best families, as they would say, a
devout Muhamedan, a man honored by Government with a good position,
receiving a large salary, and yet for a paltry rupee or two he stole my
medicine, robbed the poor of what I had given them, and then
deliberately lied about it. Why, I would sooner trust you, Cockear, with
my dinner than such a man, wouldn’t I?” and Cockear put up his paw and
nodded his head as if to say: “You are right again, my master.”
Mr. Percy continued, “I was once in a district where there was a famine;
thousands of people were starving. At the best, we had not funds
sufficient to give them half enough to eat of the coarsest food. There
was nothing for them to gather, not even grass, for the earth was as
hard and dry as a brick. The people died in the villages, on the roads,
under the trees, not from any disease but from starvation. Every day we
sent out men to bury the dead—skeletons—on which there was nothing for
even the jackals to eat. It was a horrid time. I could scarcely eat my
own food for thinking of the poor wretches dying in want of such food as
was given to my dogs and horses. The few Europeans could not be
everywhere in the district and watch everything, so we had to use our
subordinates. In a very large village we put the Tahsildar in charge. He
reported to us the number to be fed, and we supplied him with funds and
gave him orders to purchase and distribute so much food each day. He
reported every day that he had done so. I rode out one morning very
early and found some food cooked, the fires all out, and the
distribution ready to begin. I had the food weighed and found it was
only half the allowance ordered, and that he had daily reported. I
ordered the fires to be relighted and the proper amount of food to be
cooked, and saw to the feeding of the people myself, twenty-two hundred
of them, and then what they did get was only half of what they needed, a
couple of chupatties and a little dhal, to last them for twenty-four
hours; but it was all we could give them. This was for that day; but
what if I had not been there, or what of the days when no European was
present? We were as positive as we could be that this Tahsildar was
making money out of the famine fund; but what could we do? He received
the money, he bought the food, saw to the distribution and made out his
own reports. He could have bought up any number of lying witnesses to
prove that he was honest, and we had none to prove him otherwise.
Shortly after the famine he made a grand wedding for one of his children
that cost him over ten thousand rupees, and it was the common talk among
the natives that he got this money from the famine relief fund.
“Such a man, to rob the food from the mouths of starving children! He
would be mean enough to take the winding-sheet from the corpse of his
grandmother if he could sell it for a few anas! He was probably the best
native in the district. What then were the rest? And they talk of giving
such men power to make laws and govern India! If a man like him, in such
a position, would be guilty of such contemptibly mean crimes, what might
be expected of men receiving only a few rupees a month? Give me an
honest dog every time, rather than such a man,” and Cockear nodded again
very emphatically, as if saying, “There is no mistake in that.” Thus Mr.
Percy talked, for this was one of his moods. He seemed to be thinking
aloud. He was so just and kind himself toward the natives, though they
often abused his confidence, that when he talked of their dishonesty and
meanness to each other he always grew warm. Why shouldn’t he?
He had great sympathy for the poorer natives, since he knew so much of
the extortions and tyranny of the richer classes.
To have some little part in the conversation I told the story of that
frightful zemindar who seized the very rags of the poor people in that
never to be forgotten court from which I had escaped; and of the cruel
robbery of the man of his handful of fish that he had caught for his
starving old mother. How vividly that scene came up before me.
“Yes,” said Mr. Percy, “and very likely that same zemindar would be
called before some wandering parliamentary committee to give his advice
about relieving the poverty of the people of India. He could tell them
more of how to relieve them of their property.”
As I had no experience and little knowledge of these subjects I could
not say much; so both Cockear and I were good listeners, as we
frequently had such conversations, that is, Mr. Percy talked while we
listened. Some Frenchman has said that there is a large class of people,
including nearly everybody, who have not sense enough to talk, nor sense
enough to keep still. Had he seen the dog and me, I am sure he would
have made a special class for us.
I need not say that the days passed quickly, and the time was coming for
me to return to school. I scarcely allowed myself to think of leaving
Mr. Percy and his pleasant home. When I did so, a choking lump would
come into my throat and a pain into my heart that brought tears to my
eyes. What boy has not felt this? I hardly dared hint at my feeling, but
one day when Mr. Percy suggested some preparation for going, I said I
was sorry to leave. “Yes, Charles, so am I sorry to have you go. But I
wish you to make a man of yourself, and this can be done only by
discipline of the mind and the acquisition of knowledge, and the best
place for this is in school. Manly strength comes from exercise of the
body, mental strength from using the mind, and both should go together.
If you neglect the culture of both, except to ornament the body with
clothes, you become a fop or swell. If you improve the body only, you
are simply a muscular animal or strong brute. Neglect the body and only
cultivate the mind, and you may become a mental phenomenon, a dyspeptic
growler. A trained mind in a trained body, is the way to put it;
otherwise there is incongruity, as much as to speak of cleanly people
living in a filthy house or filthy people living in a clean house. I
said discipline of mind. This comes by thinking for yourself, reasoning
with intense thought, and retaining what you learn. A man mentally
strong is not the one who simply knows the most, but the one who has
power to think, to reason, grasp facts, compare them and make
conclusions. The most of the educated natives have acquired knowledge by
memory, to the neglect of their reasoning faculties, and are like
trained parrots. One with disciplined reasoning faculties has always the
advantage over the one who is only a memorizer. The former is able to
use the material he may find in his way, while the other has the
materials but is unable to use them. Therefore get discipline, reasoning
power first of all, and the other will naturally follow. You must labor
with your mind as with the body. You may come across the story of the
man who began by lifting the calf, and continued it daily, so that when
the calf became an ox he could lift it as well. Strength of mind is
acquired by constant study, mental lifting. The boy who at first lifts
the light weight of the multiplication table and goes on lifting
something heavier each day, will find at length no difficulty in
grappling with Newton’s Principia. The training of either mind or body
should not be by spurts or sudden starts. You cannot violate the laws of
growth, either mental or physical, and be a really well developed man,
any more than you can violate God’s natural or moral laws six days of
the week and expect to make up for it on the seventh day. I do not want
you to be a seventh-day sort of a man, but to be real and true every day
and every hour you live.”
With such remarks as these he grew more and more in earnest. “And now,”
said he, “I wish to talk to you from my inner soul, and I want to make
an impression that may never leave you as long as you live.”
I will not try to give his words. I thought so much of what he meant
that I did not remember the phrases he used. He talked to me of
uncleanness of thought in which is the root of all evil, of
uncleanliness of speech, of uncleanliness in deed. He told me of things
that made cold chills rush through me and gave me such a fright of
impurity that I think this talk was the greatest blessing of my life. He
warned me against improper associates. “If you cannot get good company,
it were better to be alone. If a boy makes any improper suggestion or
indulges in improper talk, check him at once, show him the evil of it,
persuade him, do him good in every way, but if he will not desist, run
from him as if from a leper or from fire, and keep away from him as you
would from a foul or poisonous thing. Better to throw yourself into the
filth of the gutter than to allow yourself or any one to throw filth on
your mind. You can wash your body or your clothes, but never wash your
mind. The stains that are made upon it can never be erased. They are
more indelibly engraved on the memory than any engraving on the hardest
substance known. Memory is God’s judgment-day book, or rather men’s, for
each one keeps his own daily and eternal record, and this he will take
with him when he departs this life, and he will possess it, for it is a
part of his soul, and carry it with him for ever; and this record will
be a constant and perpetual witness for or against himself and make his
heaven or his hell. This record is as indestructible as the soul itself;
nothing of it can be lost, for nothing in the memory can ever be
forgotten. Man is the architect of his own fortune, not only in this
life, but for the life to come. Now Charles, I have told you all this as
a sacred duty, and I beg of you in the fear of God, and for the love and
regard you have for me, remember and obey these things.”
How well do I remember this. We had come into the garden and taken our
seats on one of the benches. He took one of my hands in each of his and
looking me in the eyes he talked with such warmth and tenderness as if
his soul was in every word. And I am sure it was. Had I been his own
son, and he upon his death-bed looking into eternity and giving me his
last parting words, he could not have expressed himself with more
solicitude and loving tenderness. How often in my life have I thanked
God for such a wise friend and those words that have kept me from
falling into many a snare and from getting many a stain and wound.
There are many thousands—bishops, priests, parsons _et id omne genus_,
who are wasting their lives in trying to reconstruct the old hardened
sinners. If they were to spend four-fifths of their time in warning the
children and youth against vices and in showing them the horrid nature
of the pitfalls of sin, in a few generations there would be no old
sinners to worry about. They leave the young trees to grow all gnarled
and twisted and then sputter about trying to convert them into straight
trees. I have heard many a sermon, but all of them put together never
had such a good effect upon my life as that half-hour’s earnest talk in
the garden.
But as I am not well up in church therapeutics, my suggestions may be
scorned by the last downy-cheeked fledgling of a priest who has just
donned his church coat. Yet I cannot help thinking my own honest
thoughts.
Did we have any such instructions in school? None whatever. The course
of study was prepared by Government. It was so full and rigid that very
few of the boys could spare time to read a book or paper. We were much
like the poor geese of Strasburg. Each goose is nailed up in a box so
that it cannot stand up or move, with its head and neck out at one end
of the box. A number of times during the day and night, men go through
the lines each with a syringe filled with chopped feed which is injected
down the throats of the geese, willy nilly, and thus, enlarged livers
are produced for the celebrated pâté de foie gras.
We human geese were stuffed and crammed by our teachers. It was “one
demnition grind,” quoting Mr. Mantalini. There was no physiology or
hygienic morals in the course and no time to give attention to such
subjects.
It is true, we had our religious exercises. We memorized the creeds and
catechism; but as they were compulsory and often given us to learn or
repeat as a punishment, we got to rattling them off as we did the
multiplication table or rules of grammar. We certainly neither
understood them or fell in love with them. We had our daily religious
service, as a matter of course, just as we had our morning wash, by rule
and order, and as the water was often icy cold, so was the other. In
fact all the religious ceremonies were as formal, exact and regular as
if the motive power was a steam engine.
After the plain talk given me by Mr. Percy, I thought what a blessing it
would be if all the boys could have heard him, or if our burly principal
or some of the teachers could have given us some instruction about
keeping our minds and bodies morally pure and clean, rather than cram us
continually with mathematics, grammar, creeds and psalms. As for the
good these latter did us, they might as well have been written on a roll
of paper and placed in a Tibetan prayer-wheel, and each boy to give it a
turn as he passed. However, I may be an old fool, as these are the
thoughts of my later years.