_10th February_ 1893.
He was a fully developed John Bull of the outrageous type--with a huge
beak of a nose, cunning eyes, and a yard-long chin. The curtailment of our
right to be tried by jury is now under consideration by the Government.
The fellow dragged in the subject by the ears and insisted on arguing it
out with our host, poor B---- Babu. He said the moral standard of the
people of this country was low; that they had no real belief in the
sacredness of life; so that they were unfit to serve on juries.
The utter contempt with which we are regarded by these people was brought
home to me when I saw how they can accept a Bengali's hospitality and talk
thus, seated at his table, without a quiver of compunction.
As I sat in a corner of the drawing-room after dinner, everything round me
looked blurred to my eyes. I seemed to be seated by the head of my great,
insulted Motherland, who lay there in the dust before me, disconsolate,
shorn of her glory. I cannot tell what a profound distress overpowered my
heart.
How incongruous seemed the _mem-sahibs_ there, in their
evening-dresses, the hum of English conversation, and the ripples of
laughter! How richly true for us is our India of the ages; how cheap and
false the hollow courtesies of an English dinner-party!