I had a chance to indulge in one of my fads. I always respect a man who
has a good fad, for there are so many aimless, jelly fish, fad-less
people in the world. One of my notions that has strengthened with my
years is—that much of the lack of energy in many people, the great cause
of drunkenness, and of much of the crime, is the want of good,
wholesome, stimulating food. “Pain is the prayer of a nerve for healthy
food.” “A man is what he eats,” or as the Hindus put it, “The milk of
the cow is in her mouth.”
It may seem absurd to some great lordly persons who know everything for
others and little for themselves, for me to have such a thought, yet I
do not know why I should not have my opinion about things as well as
other people. The views of even the wisest and best men are attacked, so
why need I hesitate or fear? Even the lean Cassius dared ask about the
great Cæsar,—
“Now, in the name of all the gods at once, upon what meat doth this our
Cæsar feed—That he is grown so great?” and it is allowed by common
consent that even a cat may look at a king.
I have always known from my own introspection that I had more energy to
work, more charity for the poor and been less inclined to meanness, when
I had good nourishing food, than when as in my school days, I was hungry
and faint on watery soup and half-boiled vegetables.
With these views I determined on trying an experiment in “Our Club,” as
I was sure it would be for good and certainly do no harm. We engaged an
excellent manager of the cookery and refectory in an Eurasian widow.
Eurasian, as we had decided to employ only our own people, except for
the most menial work. It is not a very good commentary on the native
Christians of India, that Christian families, padris, missionaries,
church committees or even the Bible and Tract Societies will not employ
them, but take heathen servants to their exclusion. If Christianity in
two hundred years has not been able to produce a servant that a
Christian might employ, is it—but what is the use of talking?
Apropos of this is a statement made by a prominent clergyman at a Church
Missionary Congress. “After a century of effort, the expenditure of many
noble lives, as well as of some millions of money, the Church of
England, extraordinary to say, has signally failed to establish one
solitary or single native church in any part of the world—that is to
say, a church self-governed, self-supporting and expanding, or
exhibiting any true signs of vitality as a church. This is a tremendous
indictment, I know, but for long, my heart has been hot within me and at
last I have spoken, not without, however, having weighed well my words.”
This woman was a model of cleanliness. One of the mottoes on our walls
was “Cleanliness is next to Godliness,” and under it printed in large
type was the remark of Sir B. W. Richardson: “Cleanliness covers the
whole field of sanitary labor. Cleanliness, that is purity of air;
cleanliness, that is purity of water; cleanliness in and around the
house; cleanliness of person; cleanliness of dress; cleanliness of food
and feeding; cleanliness in work; cleanliness in the habits of the
individual man and woman; cleanliness of life and conversation, purity
of life, temperance, all these are in man’s power.”
It is in man’s power, God-given always, as all good things are, to make
his own moral destiny for this life as for that to come. He can best
answer his own prayers by putting his own shoulder to the wheel, instead
of praying to the gods. There was a world of instruction in the reply of
Lord Palmerston to the Scotch elders of Glasgow, when they requested him
to appoint a day of fasting and prayer to avert the cholera. He replied
that it was useless to do so until they had cleaned the streets of the
city. He relied more on scavengers’ shovels than he did on Bishops’
prayers.
We made cleanliness one of the articles in our unwritten creed, for may
it not come that cleanliness of life and living will some day be the
universal creed to fit us not only for this life, but for the future
life?
The next step was to have our manager understand just what we wanted and
a number of us formed ourselves into an experimental catering and
cooking committee having first secured an excellent range for our
cook-house. This cooking really belonged to the women, but we men
assumed the right to examine into it, whether it was ours or not. We saw
to the procuring of the food, and therefor felt empowered to know that
it was properly served. I have always felt great sympathy for Xantippe
who is generally written down as a scold, for it is recorded that
Socrates would often, unawares to her, invite a number of his friends to
dinner when he had not provided a scrap for the larder. What true wife,
though she had the temper of an angel, would not give it recriminating
voice and action under such circumstances?
We provided, and so had our rights.
Our first effort was with various kinds of good substantial soup. I had
enough skimmed broth in my school days to last me for life and the very
recollection of it causes in me a kind of water brash.
We succeeded and made out a list of soups to be prepared in a wholesale
way of the best materials, at such a price that any wayfarer or
aristocrat coming to our club, could relish a bowl of it, and also that
families belonging to the club, could send in their orders the day
before for what they wanted. The price just above the cost, was so much
below what they could be made for in their homes, and so much better,
that we had many orders. We also had the best of bread, cake and
biscuit, made in the cleanest possible way. If the Europeans in India
could see how their bread is made by the natives in the bazars, they
would eschew it forever, and diet on fruits and vegetables. It is
scarcely credible the methods of the native cooks. I once at table
gravely asked my khansaman, if they really strained our soup through
their turbans? Putting his hands together in front of him, with a slight
bow he replied: “What else can we do if their Honors do not give us
towels?”
Once, as a guest, eating food provided by a zemindar, he placidly
looking on, I turned and noticed two of the servants, the one pouring
milk through the shirt-tail of the other, straining it for me to drink.
A sahib blaming his khansaman for boiling the roly poly in one of his
master’s socks, the fellow gravely replied: “Sahib! it was not one of
the clean ones!”
A friend of mine eating his mutton chops and finding some cottony shreds
in his mouth questioned his cook standing by, when the latter replied,
that as he had no tallow, he had used the waste ends of the burned
candles. The sahib at once seized his chef and holding him by the neck
forced all the remaining mess down his throat, for which he was summoned
before the magistrate and had to pay a fine of twenty-five rupees.
“But,” said my friend, “I would willingly have paid five times that
amount for the satisfaction I got in making him swallow the rest of the
stuff with the burnt wicks.”
We wanted none of that kind of cooking in our club. Our next experiment
was in the making of tea and coffee, and after a number of trials
succeeded in producing articles that few of our people had ever tasted
the like before, a nectar like coffee not to be paragoned anywhere in
the world. “And they in France of the best rank and station are most
select and generous,” in making this delicious drink.
Anent the native coffee-making is this told by a khansaman. His Sahib,
an English doctor, was always complaining that he did not get good black
coffee, such as they made in France. His cook at his wit’s end, finally
took some charcoal and grinding it to powder mixed it with the coffee.
His Sahib was highly delighted, and boastingly invited his friends to
drink his real French coffee. The servant very considerately never told
the story until after his master’s death.
Our manager fell in with our ways and suggestions and took great pride
in the science as well as the art of cookery, and in having everything
in the best possible condition.
It is a saying among the Europeans in India, “If you wish to enjoy your
dinner never look into the cook-house.” We reversed that order to “If
you wish to enjoy our food see how it is cooked.” Our restaurant was
well patronized, and it was of great benefit, morally as well as
physically. It was not for the poor alone, though the prices were so
low, for the better class, that is, the better well-to-do, did not
disdain to favor us, as everything was better than most of them could
get in their homes, and I doubt if the great Commissioner Sahib, or the
Commanding General, had near as good.
The only vice we tolerated was the smoking of tobacco, and this was
confined to the smoking-room or to the grounds outside. In respect to
this habit, we thought it best not to stretch the bow of restraint too
far, lest it break with its own tension, or we be like “The man that
once did sell the lion’s skin while the beast lived, was killed with
hunting him.” “We may outrun, by violent swiftness, that which we run
at, and lose by overrunning.”
The upper apartments were reserved entirely for the women, and reached
by a wide, marble staircase from the lower entrance hall. They had their
dressing-room, reading and other rooms richly furnished. They had more
than an equal share, for besides their own, they had the right of our
lecture hall, the library and refectory, but we were pleased with all
their encroachments, for they assisted us in every way. The walls of the
lecture hall and refectory were bare until we selected some mottoes,
which our feminine members, with their skillful taste and hands,
ornamented, making them works of art. This was done, not in a day, but
during many months of most laborious work, with rivalry and pride as to
which should produce the finest work. Some of the mottoes were these:
“We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart throbs.
He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the
best.”—_Bailey._
“There is no religion higher than truth.”—_Oriental Proverb._
“I would rather that men should say there never was such a man as
Plutarch, than say that Plutarch was unfaithful.”—_Plutarch._
“Sin makes us pay toll, if not along the way, surely at the end of the
road.”
“Not he that repeateth the name,
But he that doeth the will.”—_Longfellow._
“Every rifle should have its own bullet mold.”
“Everything is bitter to him who has gall in his mouth.”
“Truth is not drowned in water or burned in fire.”
“A fool may throw a stone into a pond; it may take seven sages to pull
it out.”
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”—_Jesus._
“Purity, even in the secret longings of our hearts, is the greatest
duty.”—_Xenocrates._
“A good man sees God reflected in his own soul; the cleaner the soul
the more vivid the image.”
“Only through the highest purity and chastity we shall approach nearer
to God, and receive, in the contemplation of Him, the true knowledge
and insight.”—_Porphyry._
“The doctrine of our Master consists in having an invariable
correctness of heart, and in doing towards others as we would that
they should do to us.”—_A Disciple of Confucius._
“The thoughts and intents of the heart are deeds in the sight of God.”
“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”—_Bible._
“All lovers of truth are lovers of God.”
“He only truly lives who lives for others.”
“We must do one of two things—either learn to control the conditions
of our lives, or let them control us.”
“The more one lives for his kind, the less need he fear to
die.”—_Kabalist Proverb._
“The highest service one can do is to serve himself in the highest
manner.”
“Whatever good betideth thee, O man, it is from God, and whatsoever
ill, from thyself is it.”—_Koran._
“There is only one road to Heaven—obedience to the Golden Rule.”
“So long as every man does to other men as he would that they should
do to him, and allow no one to interfere between him and his Maker,
all will go well with the world.”—_Ancient Pagan._
“A man obtains a proper rule of action
By looking on his neighbor as himself.
Do naught to others which, if done to thee,
Would cause thee pain; this is the sum of duty.”
—_Hindu Maxim._
“I will set my camel free and trust him to Allah.” Mahomed answered,
“Tie thy camel first, and then commit him to God.”—_Arabian Saying._
We soon had everything in good working order. A committee of
entertainment was appointed; one evening of each week was devoted to
instruction and practice in singing, for which an excellent teacher was
secured. Another evening was for the literary society, when essays were
read and subjects discussed, the members appointed in turn, so as to
give every one a chance, and all to take an interest and have something
to do. This compelled them to read and think, which took up all their
leisure hours from work, formerly spent in idleness and folly. We had no
idea of having any one or a few do all the work and receive all the
benefit, but every one, no difference who they were, was urged, assisted
and required to do their part, not so much for the benefit they might
give to others, but what they would do for themselves. Ours was a mutual
improvement association, the weakest to be helped the most.